


Dreamless

by mer_maider



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Falling In Love, First Love, First Time, Good Lotor (Voltron), Grief/Mourning, Memories, Minor Character Death, Revelations, Romance, Soft Lotor (Voltron), Tragic Romance, True Love, ventor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-08
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2020-02-28 06:18:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18750739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mer_maider/pseuds/mer_maider
Summary: She was an anchor, strength, and light. Now that Ven'tar is gone, there is only the cold darkness of space as Lotor drifts alone after his banishment. The empty ship is filled with memories and her voice still somehow breezes through the halls, but he doesn't want to let her go. She wants him to move on, she wants him to be the Prince. She wants him to follow their dream.But without Ven'tar, how can he? His ship is awfully quiet and lonely, except when he hears her voice calling to him.





	1. The New Path/The Lost Path

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy this intro and there is definitely a lot more Ventor goodness to come!

_Failure is not an option._

_The words run through his head like a mantra or a song as the ship lands, as he feels the great lurch when they touch ground and secure themselves, clawing into the planet because it’s been demanded of him. He keeps an expression on his face that is void of all emotion, his hands dutifully at his sides and his mind working overtime in a way that has never stopped for as long as he can remember._

_It never stops. It’s constantly spinning, like a planet._

_If Lotor can’t save his mind from the stress of constant overthinking, then perhaps he can save this planet instead._

_And failure is not an option._

_The Galra around him are silent as they ready themselves, as they prepare their weapons with the intension of ending anyone who dares to attack their prince. The protection isn’t so much out of devotion to their Emperor’s son, but fear of Zarkon should he become angered if his only child is returned to him dead and gone before a very important mission can proceed and succeed. The people of this planet they’ve just landed on are a mysterious kind. Who knows how they will react to what can only be called an invasion._

_That’s what they are, Lotor thinks as the bay doors open to the planet. That’s what he is today. An invader._

_He has to become something else, but to ultimately do so, he must put it out of his mind completely. And be the invader his father wants him to be._

_Lotor gets his first grand look at the planet called Kompassia, the bountiful planet, as it’s been known to be called, and Zarkon is convinced that it will, indeed, be bountiful with quintessence. The skies are golden, the air is warm and humid, and the terrain is a beautiful swirl of green and brown. Lush with plant and creature life and generous with fresh blue water, it is the perfect planet for the Empire to enslave and control and use up. The pure quintessence generated here will supply the Empire for deca-phoebs and the Plantisects, the planet’s dominant species, will serve Emperor Zarkon of the Galra well._

_Or be obliterated._

_He exits his flagship in a brisk stride, eager to begin his work here. He sees many of Kompassia’s people gathered for his arrival, and they are all silent and still, as if they’ve already accepted their tragic fate. They look dead and defeated, but did they truly think their green planet would be bypassed by the glowing eyes of the reigning Emperor? It was foolish of them to assume so, if they had. Lotor doesn’t miss the bowed heads, the drooping of their antennae, and all the frowns._

_He can look passed the frowns. He must._

_Death is not an option._

_His guard follows him as he makes his way to the small group of leaders waiting for him beyond the ship. The three main elders of Kompassia are dressed in lavish dresses, gold jewelry, and sheer veils over their aged faces. Kompassia is a matriarchy, Lotor remembers from his research, and all happily serve the First Mother. Here, the females are in charge. Perhaps that very fact is one of the reasons Zarkon chose to send his son here instead of another commander._

_It is seen as yet another weakness Lotor considers a great strength._

_The elder’s all bow to him. Lotor would in return, but the Galra are watching, and they kneel only for Zarkon. When they leave him to his work here, he will be able to make up for this disrespect. Another thing he doesn’t miss is the failure the elders all feel at this moment in time. They were unable to protect their own from the Empire._

_No one is truly safe. Not even the Galran prince._

_“Prince Lotor,” the elder in the middle says to him while still maintaining the bow. Her voice is lackluster, but Lotor doesn’t call her out on it. “ I am Elder Voli’aan. We have surrendered completely to Emperor Zarkon, and have agreed to serve the Empire. In exchange for our compliance, I have asked your mighty father to spare the lives of those you would determine to be unfit to work for you. All hands have been called, and I can guarantee you no one will fail.”_

_The Plantisects are a powerful species, Lotor muses as he listens to more of their pleas and reassuring comments. They aren’t powerful the way the Galra are powerful, but their strength is something Lotor can plainly see. Though he has never seen their capabilities with his own eyes, he’s read some fascinating information. The antennae on their heads is said to give them the abilities of an empath, to sense and transfer emotion. They have a deep and ancient connection to their planet that is so strong and secure and almost celestial that some are able to manipulate the elements, and Lotor has never known of a species to do such a thing. Though they lack physical strength and brutality, they hold emotion and the power of the elements in the palm of their hands._

_They would be unstoppable if they weren’t a peaceful people._

_Lotor finally holds up a hand. There is great fear all around him, and the frowns… He must continue to ignore them for now. “Your devotion to my father will be seen in time, Elder. For now, all is well. Our business begins today.”_

_Voli’aan gives a nod, and her defeated eyes show a bit of relief, though they keep nervously finding the weapons in the claws of the royal guard. “We have prepared a home for you, and any you wish to bring along.”_

_He will bring along no one from the Empire save for his cat, but the guard doesn’t know it yet. Soon they will be sent back to his father and his witch. “I trust you understand my guard will sweep this home for any dangers,” he says lowly, staring hard at the elder. It isn’t a threat, but a warning. “If anything is uncovered, they will strike first with a punishment.”_

_The elder’s frown sets in deeper. “I assure you, you will always be safe here. Our weapons are unable to rival your own.”_

_He doesn’t worry so much that there is some kind of trap waiting for him, and Kompassia’s weapons are practically useless sticks carved with a sharp tip. What worries him are the lives lost if there is a trap meant to end or injure him. More lives will be taken than necessary. It is the way of the Empire._

_Failure and death are not an option. Not here._

_“I will require a liaison, and a guide. Someone with precise knowledge of the planet and the people. I don’t wish to speak to a hundred faces every day.”_

_“Of course, your highness. That is a matter we’ve already seen to.” Voli’aan lifts a hand, makes a sweeping gesture. The other elders part and present him his guide, as if she is a welcoming gift for their own invader._

_Lotor stares at her and yes, she is a female. He prefers working with women, and already he approves. She is younger than the elders and must hold quite the position if chosen by them to assist the prince of the Galra._

_“This is Lady Ven’tar,” Voli’aan tells him, and again, the frown deepens just a little bit more. Lotor wonders if they consider their chosen guide to be a sacrifice they have no choice to make. “She is available to you for as long as you wish, and will serve as liaison, guide, and aide. Her knowledge and reliability are boundless. I’m certain you will be satisfied with her assistance.”_

_Lady Ven’tar, Lotor repeats in his head. Someone to help him suck this planet dry of all quintessence. Someone to help him enslave her own people as she secures shackles to her delicate wrists. Someone for Zarkon to ultimately crush._

_But the Prince has other plans._

_He then realizes that her eyes are locked right on his own, an act not even the elders can force themselves to do out of fear and supressed hatred. Her head is not bowed, her shoulders are not slumped in defeat, her mouth doesn’t carry a frown. She stares right at him, as if he is something worth staring at._

_And Lady Ven’tar gives him the first bright smile._

_“Welcome to Kompassia, liege,” she says to him. She is the first to greet him in a friendly manner. “I’m eager to begin working with you.”_

_Extinction is not an option. The declaration socks him right in the heart as he stares at this brightness within her. The brightest one of her kind._

_He’s never felt such a sensation before._

 

* * *

 

 

 

Now, he had never felt such stress. He was pretty sure he was dying.

And he’d never moved so fast.

Not even on the day of his birth had so many eyes of the Empire been on him. He may have been Zarkon’s one and only child, but the Galra had never seemed to really care about that fact. There was something about him that ruined him in their eyes. For deca-phoebs Lotor had tried to figure out what it was that sullied him, and why Zarkon had never cared to include him. It wasn’t until within this last deca-phoeb that he finally found out why. He wasn’t all Galra. His father had not married one of his own kind. An unfit half-breed, was what he was. And now, with all disapproving eyes of Central Command on him, he was also something else.

He was disgraced, and officially banished from the Empire. An exile.

No time, no energy, no ability to care about that, he thought frantically, trying to control his breaths as they sped up in his chest and trying to keep his knees from knocking as he practically jogged down the halls and trying _so hard_ not to scream and rage and lash out. He wasn’t sure how well he was succeeding based on the expressions of the Galra as they watched him go, as they all lifted their weapons in case he put up a fight. He was now an exile of the Galra Empire and it was now he would _leave it_.

The only thing he would take with him was his ship and the pieces of his now shattered heart. Shattered and burning. Burning like her…

_He was pretty sure he was dying._

Down the halls, to the hangar, into the ship. He was running now, and it would only take one squeeze of the trigger for a soldier to end his life as they practically spat on the ground he walked on. Lotor stumbled right to the bridge of his flagship, fell into a seat as his hands sped along the controls. It shouldn’t take him too long, perhaps there was still something he could do. As his ship lifted from the ground and the bay doors opened for him to finally rid the exiled prince from their great regime, Lotor quickly glanced back through the glass. One last look.

His father was nowhere to be found. Zarkon didn’t even bother to make sure Lotor would leave.

He took off into space, one man aboard a giant ship meant for an entire team. His hands trembled as he gripped the controls, his dry and focused eyes set firmly on the star map for navigation. It couldn’t have been too long since he’d been taken from Kompassia. Zarkon’s weapons of mass destruction took a little time to charge and to circle the planet to hit all the critical and fatal targets that would ensure annihilation. He couldn’t have been unconscious for vargas…

There was a band tied firmly around his upper arm under his flight suit. He felt it as clearly as he felt the frantic beating of his heart knocking against his ribs.

Central Command had not strayed from Kompassia very far, and it wasn’t long until Lotor arrived again at the burning planet. His teeth clattered as his shaking eyes locked onto the red and orange of the devastating flames seen clearly from space, and for just a single moment, his head went dizzy and he swayed some on his feet. No, no, no, he thought frantically, giving his head a quick shake so he could focus and prepare the ship to land. Land where, he wasn’t exactly sure. He activated the scans, practically screamed at the computer to find a safe spot, anywhere, please let there be a spot to land and help and save.

Maybe he could still grab her… Surely the Elders would keep her safe for him for as long as they could.

The ship’s screens flared red with warning and danger and a grating alarm rang out through the speakers.

“Don’t tell me that,” he barked angrily, slamming a fist on the console and giving the command again. He would land this ship on that planet. Somewhere, he would land.

And find her, and hold her, and be with her. It was all he’d ever wanted.

More red, more danger. And this time, the voice of the computer.

_Planet Kompassia is uninhabitable._

“No!”

_Planet Kompassia is deprived of all life._

Another flash of dizziness, another wave of nausea. And one very noticeable squeeze of the band around his arm. Hyperventilating now, Lotor glanced up from the glaring red screens to the window of space and his world literally burning before his eyes. Why he needed to see it again…

He supposed it was just futile hope and an outpouring of intense love that made him return to what was now nothing but a graveyard in the stars.

Kompassia was uninhabitable and deprived of all life. Nothing was alive, not one tree, not one little insect left. Not even one single woman who had changed his life entirely.

Ven’tar was gone. Zarkon had murdered her. Her grave was a burning planet, and she would never rest peacefully.

_It was all his fault._

“Lotor.”

He swayed again, but he still heard the soft calling of his name. He knew her voice but she was dead. There was no way he should be hearing it and he was all alone on this big ship. Ven’tar would never truly speak to him again.

“Lotor,” she whispered, and it drifted through the bridge like a gust of wind. Like a ghost.

His eyes flicked to the side as if he could pinpoint it. He waited, but there was nothing but silence now. Anxiety and grief, despair and guilt, filled within him in a way he’d never known before.

It was barely a dobash later until he fainted, falling to the floor once again as Kompassia continued to burn before him.

 

 


	2. The Rainbow/The Void

_He has never seen so many colors before._

_It seems one tree can carry all the hues of the rainbow, with a real rainbow in the sky above it as it sways in the floral scented warm breezes. The brooks and ponds of Kompassia are every shade of blue, and they make constant sound of either rushing water or a soft splash of some cold-blooded creature as it flees to the coolness of the wet. Lotor has been to many worlds during his father’s reign, but it seems not even the lush Olkarion can compare to the bountiful wilds here._

_With a beeping tablet in his hands and Kova resting on his shoulders, he glances up at the golden sky, and looks at the rainbow again. There’s some godly meaning to the rainbow, but he’s forgotten it. All of nature, this entire world, is treated as a gift from the heavens. Perhaps that is why the lands look the way they do. Here, there are rainbows. The brilliant colors pull him in._

_A voice pulls him out._

_“What is Emperor Zarkon like?”_

_Lotor leaves the rainbow and finds Ven’tar, his aide. She holds a tablet like his own, watching the screen as she walks the location. Their technology is creating a perimeter for when they harvest quintessence here. The scans have told them this sector is practically overflowing in it, ready to burst. They only take from the flooding areas so that the planet has no problem replenishing itself._

_It has been weeks since they began, and Lotor believes they’re doing good work. The numbers have been outstanding._

_And his aide is… rather easy to labor with. Usually he must watch his own back with a blade tucked away in his boot. Placing the weapon there has now become a simple habit instead of a necessary precaution._

_“Why do you ask?” He looks down at the screen in his hand as it calculates and feels the slight pinch of Kova’s claws sinking into his suit. “Surely you know of his galactic triumphs.”_

_She only lifts a shoulder. “I suppose I’d like know to who it is I’ve been serving.”_

_He takes a moment to pick and choose the words. He has to change the words of how he really feels, because giving her the truth would be a light form of treason. “Zarkon is… quick to command. He’s tactical and strong and he knows who to place at which post, and how to best utilize them. He’s mostly slow to anger, and yet terribly quick at the same time. He’s… big.” When he isn’t given a response, he glances back up at her. He finds Ven’tar staring at him as if he’s just sprouted angel wings. “What?”_

_“Oh,” she mutters, turning away with a very small grin._

_“Oh?”_

_His tone must’ve sounded humorous, because he hears the light flow of her giggling._

_“He is your father,” she says to him. As she walks – glides, he corrects, because it seems she always glides – the ends of her breezy dress drift over the ground and catch fallen leaves. “Your very powerful, very formidable conqueror of a father, and you are his son. A Prince who, in a small way, owns this universe as he does. His precious heir,” she adds, swiping her finger along the screen and tapping some. “Yet you do not speak of him as your father. You choose to give me an everyday description of the Galra Emperor that you must know would never impress me. It is so very mundane for someone such as Zarkon of planet Daibazaal.”_

_His brow lifts. “Would you rather I give you a deep and dark family secret, Ven’tar?”_

_The grin is still there on her face as she meets his eyes. “Do you even know any deep and dark family secrets, liege?”_

_She only calls him liege. Not Prince Lotor, not your highness or the other respectful variations, not even Lord Prince. Not that he would care if she didn’t call him anything at all. He’s only here to mine quintessence and save this planet with her help._

_And she’s right, Lotor thinks. He doesn’t know any family secrets because he doesn’t really have a family. Even his own mother is a mystery to him._

_Zarkon’s only weakness. That is only one of two things he knows about the late and last empress._

_Ven’tar’s tablet is finished with its scans, and she returns it to their all-terrain vehicle. There are other preparations for the area before harvest, but one step at a time. “I only asked because I was curious of your answer. I predicted beforehand that it would go one of two ways.”_

_“Gambling on me, are you?”_

_“Yes,” she answers sweetly. “And I was right. Though there are no winnings for me to collect.” Ven’tar removes her cape carefully. Under it, her dress is as yellow as the sky above them, and after kicking off her sandals, she walks over to the rushing stream near them._

_Kova leans up with a great purr and rubs against his cheek. “You were right that I would give you a less than satisfactory description of the Emperor?”_

_“I’m right about a lot of things when it comes to you, liege,” she tells him, studying the flow of the water near her feet. Her antennae twitch a little, she lifts her hand, and one line of sparkling water rises from the surface. Ven’tar is a Plantisect who can bend the water to her will. It seems she only uses her wondrous gift for play. “Our time together has confirmed so much.” She stops and turns to him then. “Your colorful little animal companion does not care for water, does he?”_

_“No, not at all.” Lotor’s hand automatically comes up to feel Kova’s fur. “And he is a cat.”_

_“Cat. Yes, yes,” she murmurs to herself, as if she must force herself to remember it. “Then I shall not offer to take him into the water for some fun. He is a delightful royal cat.”_

_Kova usually doesn’t like strangers, but Lotor has caught Ven’tar scratching under the cat’s chin multiple times without suffering a swipe of claws. Once, he even watched her kiss the top of his head with her antennae and whisper something into his furry blue ear._

_“Tell me of these confirmations,” Lotor says to her._

_She’s quiet for a moment as she makes the water sway in waves back and forth over the surface of the stream. He comes to stand near her to watch her power, entranced by it once again. Little orange fish rock back and forth through the waves, as if she’s taking them on a ride. She doesn’t look hesitant or frightened when she answers him. “I’ve always been able to speak freely around you. One of two ways, though I knew which one you would choose. You would either describe your father with great pride, reminding me that you came from him and you would regale me with some fond memory of your childhood, or some such nonsense. Or you would describe him so… dully. As if he weren’t your father at all.”_

_“And you were right,” Lotor finishes for her._

_She smiles, and gives a slight nod. “You don’t speak of him as a proud son would speak. You don’t feel for him as a loving son would feel.”_

_Proud and loving are no such words to use when giving an account of the Galran royal family. And though he’s been working with Ven’tar for weeks, he’s not sure she would be able to know such truths._

_“How do you know what I feel?” he asks her, and now he’s standing right next to her after discarding his tablet. The stream babbles on and Kova starts to purr again. “You haven’t been using your abilities on me, have you?”_

_She seems to take a little offense to that. He hopes the water in her control doesn’t start to boil over and cook those tiny fish._

_“My gifts don’t work that way. I’m capable of reaching out to feel what’s in the air around us, but I would never read you without your consent, nor would I stand by to allow something detrimental to your health. I’ve sworn to aide you in all ways.”_

_The Prince doesn’t work with his subjects the way the Emperor works with his own. Especially not when it comes to someone who is all but his second in command, like Lady Ven’tar. Especially not a smart and capable woman. “I apologize. I didn’t mean that in a serious manner.”_

_“I know you didn’t. And you have nothing to apologize for.”_

_Lotor watches her raise a mound of water and clench her fist. The mound instantly turns into a billion droplets of water, and she slashes her arm through the air, sending the droplets over to some plant life not close to the stream’s edge to wet them. “Then why are you upset?”_

_She looks up at him. He isn’t that much taller than her; Ven’tar’s body is willowy but long. If she raises her antennae up perfectly straight, they would be the same height. “It upsets me that you are so distrusting.”_

_Her eyes are yellow and red. Long and thick black lashes outline those eyes, and the way they bat over that yellow and red is an interesting action to him. They are the only eyes on this planet that don’t mourn, that don’t long for the days before the Galra came for them. Eyes that are not full of hate and fear. But right now… he sees sadness in them._

_Kova’s tail gently whips under his hair._

_“When you speak to me of Zarkon, there is nothing in your voice. I hear far more pride and excitement from you when you show me our quintessence yields and I see far more interest in your face when you watch me move the water than when your armies cover more of the star map. When I tell you I know how you feel…” Her voice goes soft and those lashes do that gentle flutter. “Your first thought is that I’ve trespassed somewhere I don’t belong, without your permission. I find that… very upsetting, liege.”_

_Something in his chest clenches. Something in his stomach flips. More new sensations when he’s around this woman. “Do you think it’s appropriate to say such things to the Galra?”_

_He doesn’t know why he said the words. It feels more defensive than spoken in warning. But instead of bowing and asking for his forgiveness, Ven’tar smiles up at him._

_“You aren’t like them,” she whispers to him._

_A harder clench, a bigger flip. He’s barely aware of when Kova jumps off of his shoulders and pads back to their vehicle to hop onto the seat for a nap. You aren’t like them, she said._

_He’s not. He isn’t like them at all._

_“I don’t need to read you to know that.” She waits a beat, carefully watching his face, before she reaches out for his hands. She takes them in hers, holds them between their bodies. It’s a very simple touch, but to Lotor, who is used to a more harsh hand, it feels incredibly intense. And still there is no need, no alarm, to reach for a weapon or take a step back._

_There’s something about her touch. It feels like something he’s never felt before. Something safe, something gentle._

_Something warm and enticing._

_“I don’t know what it is, liege,” she says softly to him, her voice like a breeze over his skin. “From the first moment I saw you, I didn’t see a conqueror, though you stood in a sea of them. I didn’t see a burning desire in your eyes to drain my planet dry in your father’s name. And I did not see arrogance, a mighty need in you to flaunt a crown you don’t wear. All of these things… They are not what I know of the Galra.”_

_There go her lashes again, a soft whisper over her eyes. He’s kept his hands in hers but he doesn’t hold on, he’s never held on. But he can feel the squeeze in her own. She wants to hold on. “I’m not all Galra.”_

_It is something he’d found out not too long ago, the other of the two details he knows. And though the images in his head of his mother are now not of a Galra woman, Lotor can’t say he’s terribly surprised by his mixed blood. It is what’s kept him from their love and devotion, why the commanders still scoff at him and why the oldest of their kind barely acknowledge his existence. Zarkon upset them all so long ago by marrying the wrong race and conceiving a half-breed son. It’s a relieving thing to know._

_But now, in his mind, his mother has no face at all._

_Ven’tar only smiles at him once again. “Then what parts of you are Galra, they are the best of your people. Never forget that I am always right.”_

_It didn’t surprise him to discover his mixed blood. What surprises him more is how he laughs at her comment now. His aide is quite charming. “I find I can’t disagree with you, my Lady.”_

_She doesn’t let go of his hands as she slightly tilts her chin upward. In the reflection of her eyes, he can see the multitude of colors from the sky. “Do you remember what the rainbow means to my people, liege?”_

_Her eyes are a rainbow. It’s rather hypnotizing. He finds he can watch the colors all day long in her eyes. “I confess I’ve forgotten.”_

_When Ven’tar lets go of his hands, it seems she does so with regret._

_“It means revelation is coming. Somehow, someway… something will be revealed to those who see it. It is always a good thing, a promising thing.”_

_They both look up this time. It’s right there, hovering majestically in the sky. A long arc of colors that seems to go for miles._

_“I suppose we should both be prepared,” she says._

 

* * *

 

 

Now there was nothing left to prepare for. There was nothing more to do, no more tasks to complete, no more Empire to serve. No woman to protect.

There was only the next drink to swallow down.

Drifting in the middle of cosmic nowhere was the perfect place for someone who had nothing left to do. Black space didn’t tell time or the changing of the days. Time was meaningless out here, and whether it was still today or even tomorrow, he found it just didn’t matter. For all Lotor knew, it could even be next week already.

That was incorrect, he thought groggily as his shadowed eyes moved to the glass so he could peek out at the stars. There was one reminder of how much time had passed around him.

The only color Kompassia had left were the few lines of simmering fire within the black burned husk the planet now was. Soon, those veins of fire would slowly cool and disappear, fulfilling their one purpose of complete destruction. How long exactly it had taken for Kompassia to burn and die was something he didn’t really know. It shouldn’t be too much longer until the Weblum would come and consume it, and wipe the bountiful planet completely off the star map. It was already a very dangerous thing to be hovering near Kompassia in his ship. One blast of the great creature would incinerate him.

He pondered the threat for only a few ticks before he turned away from the glass and lifted the wine bottle to his lips.

Lotor was sure it was terribly cliché of him to be keeping himself in a constant inebriated state so he wouldn’t feel the crushing pain and loss and grief for the one he’d loved. Numerous bottles of both Kompassian and Galran wine would not ultimately help him and it would not bring Ven’tar back and it would certainly not give him any answers, but at least it gave him a fleeting task and a wonderful numbness. Everything about him was pitiful in the loneliness of his ship.

He knew his hair was getting rather greasy in the messy ponytail he’d tied around his white locks. He knew he should bathe and that being clean would make him feel better, but with every bottle he drank from and dropped to the floor, he couldn’t seem to drag himself to the bathing chambers. All he did was drink wine straight from the bottle as he lounged sideways in the commander’s seat of the ship, one thin blanket and one disappointing pillow for when he passed out drunk and just one black wrap hanging off of his naked hips because clothes and armor were a nuisance when he drank.

He just wanted to drink. He just wanted to forget, and sleep.

Incorrect again, he thought, cradling his current bottle of wine to his chest as he glanced at his upper arm with the slowness of an intoxicated man. He wasn’t only wearing a black wrap tied at his hipbone. Another wrap, a smaller one, was still secured around his bicep.

Ven’tar had been wearing one just like it under her dress.

Even drunk and grieving and lost, he couldn’t seem to remove that piece of cloth from his arm, though there was now no more need for it.

Lotor cleared his burning throat, the only sound in his very quiet ship, and lifted the bottle to swallow down the rest of the wine. When it was useless to him, he dropped it to the floor with all the others. His face felt hot as he stared up at the ceiling and it wasn’t long until he fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, everything was exactly the same. Everything was dark and still so quiet. He was still alive.

_Damn._

Lotor tossed the blanket away and sat up properly in the seat. His stomach was not happy with him and it longed for proper nourishment, but that would require energy he didn’t feel like expelling. He quickly checked on Kompassia. The veins of fire were now completely out, and the entire planet was blackened.

He leaned down and reached for one of the unopened bottles of wine to start all over again. He could drink through the queasy stomach and the pounding in his head.

_Lotor._

With his eyes closed and his head bowed, he wondered if drinking yet another bottle would make that whisper breezing into his ears go away again. It was possible he’d smacked his head hard when he’d fainted after his banishment, or when the witch incapacitated him on Kompassia. Maybe he had a concussion.

He was certainly hearing things when he wasn’t drunk enough to ignore it.

Lotor didn’t want to hear her voice. Hearing the voice of a dead woman meant it was over for him and his sanity.

With his hand gripping the slim wine bottle, Lotor stood, doing so slowly so his head wouldn’t spin too much. The ends of his poorly tired black wrap fell to the floor and dragged when he walked, making his way through the dark ship and swaying some on his bare feet. His stomach churned with every step but still he lifted the bottle and drank from it.

What else did he have to do? This was his life now. If the Weblum didn’t fry his ship, he would certainly die by alcohol consumption.

_Lotor._

He shook his head to clear it of the whispering, but that only made the pounding worse. He took another big gulp again as he entered the master bathing chambers, making his way to the mirrored compartment that held medication. He could deal with the heat under his skin and he could deal with the turning stomach and lack of food and water, but the headache was something he couldn’t bear any longer. At least not until he passed out again.

“Lights on.”

Another mistake. He winced at the sudden brightness, fell against the wall as his eyes squeezed shut. He grabbed his head with one hand as the other gripped the wine, his voice commanding the ship’s computer to lower the brightness. He set the bottle down and finally glanced up at himself in the mirror before him.

He’d never looked like this before. Messy, greasy hair, shadowed and reddened eyes from dehydration, so naked but unenticingly so. Just a drunk fool, a drunk _lost_ fool who had nothing, who was now all alone. A filthy, widowed exile.

He’d tried to help the universe in a small way by trying to save an entire planet. He’d failed miserably because look at him. Look at the Prince now. He’d tried.

The universe would have to be crushed by Zarkon because he had nothing left to give to the fight. It was time to step aside, and accept defeat.

Lotor opened the compartment, found the medication he wanted and swallowed it down with more wine. Especially dangerous when all alone in the middle of that cosmic nowhere, but who out there needed him? Who was there left to care? He didn’t even have a proper home anymore.

The band on his arm was a constant squeeze.

He wanted to go back to his chair and his sea of empty wine bottles on the floor, so he closed the compartment, instantly turned away from his unkempt and very displeasing appearance. He turned around.

“Lotor, what are you doing?”

He jumped, stumbled a bit and fell back against the counter, feeling the splash of wine on his feet when he dropped the bottle and it shattered on the floor. There she was, right there. Beautiful green skin, enchanting eyes, her slim, willowy figure. Ven’tar, standing before him and asking a simple question.

Panting now as his heart raced in his chest, he covered his eyes from the image of her, tried to take a few steadying breaths as his knees knocked and his stomach revolted and his brain hammered against his skull. He’d heard her, he’d heard her voice, as clear as when she’d been alive. He could feel her presence, if only for an instant. It shook him to the core, made his shoulders start to tremble, and it was too much. He started to sweat all over, started to drool in his mouth as he hyperventilated.

Lotor practically fell to the floor in front of the toilet and vomited right into it.

She’d been there, but she wasn’t there anymore. As he emptied his stomach of wine and bile, he wondered if he was now having some kind of breakdown. He’d hallucinated the image of her, just like her whisper in his head through the halls of the ship. After he had nothing more to add to the toilet, he leaned up, breathed deeply as he rested his cheek on the bowl. He tried to steady his breathing.

When he opened his eyes again… there she was. Staring down at him in a flowing silver dress the shade of starlight.

_Ven’tar._ His murdered love.

“Lotor,” she said again, tilting her head to the side as she studied him. “What are you doing?”

This was the end, he thought as his wide eyes took her in and his teeth clattered together. This was the end for him and his sanity.

A sane man would surely not be seeing dead girls.

His eyes flicked to the wine spilt all over the floor mixed with shattered pieces of glass. She seemed to follow his gaze.

“Do you think you’re hallucinating because of the wine?” she asked him, even picking up the skirt of her dress so none of the drink soaked into it as it trailed across the floor. But was there really a dress there to ruin? “That is a possible thing for you, my love. I remember when only two glasses of moss whiskey put you straight to sleep in my lap. It seems you’ve built up a tolerance, though I’m not sure I approve of it used in this way.”

His breath whooshed out of his nose and his chest hitched as he stared at her. She wasn’t moving to help him up and she wasn’t seeing to the wine and glass so neither of them cut their feet, but even if she couldn’t really do either of those things, he could still see her as if she absolutely could. The logical explanation for the memories she spoke of was that they were his memories, and his brain was projecting some image of Ven’tar to…

To torture him? Perhaps he was on his way to death to join her.

She’d once told him that life mates could die of a broken heart.

“Will you say something?” she asked, though she took no step to approach him closer. “You’re worrying me.”

Worrying her, Lotor thought. Worrying a dead woman. Was doing so a curse? Was that the reason for this torture of seeing and hearing her?

All he could manage was “You’re dead.”

“And you’re drunk, and sick. Neither of us like those particular truths.”

He waited a few moments to calm himself down. After he was sure he could sit up straight, he held the bowel of the toilet, reached over to flush his sickness down and contemplated this new predicament, which was apparently his decent into madness. His father had aggressively made sure Dayak would keep him in top shape fit for the Galra.

It seemed Dayak had failed.

“I’m not sure what’s happening to me,” he muttered out as he stared at the now clean water in the toilet. “There’s no way you survived.”

“You survived,” Ven’tar said to him. “And look what you’re doing with yourself. Look how you’re surviving.”

Her voice made him frown. What was left of his heart crumbled all over again in his chest. “I’m not surviving at all.”

“Oh, Lotor,” she murmured, and even without looking at her because he couldn’t just yet, he knew she was frowning too. Somehow he was even disappointing a hallucination. “Do you think that’s what I would want for you?”

He took another deep breath before he finally turned to look at her. She was lovely, she looked real, she looked solid. It destroyed him. His lady in a pretty silver dress. “You don’t want anything anymore, Ven,” he whispered shakily. “You’re gone. And this is what is left of me.”

She held his gaze. “My hopes and dreams for you aren’t gone. I know you haven’t forgotten them. I know you can still make them happen.”

“I can’t do this,” Lotor breathed, clumsily pushing himself to his feet and swaying a bit. He quickly rinsed his mouth, gave the spilt wine and shattered glass one uninterested glance before turning away from it and making it a problem for another day. There were bigger things to see to, like a dead woman talking to him. He stopped in his tracks as he spotted a tiny black creature in the doorway to the bathing chambers.

Kova peered up at him with his yellow eyes, sitting calmly as his long tail flicked behind him. He didn’t look at Ven’tar not once. Probably because she wasn’t really there.

Lotor only stepped over him and headed straight for the chair and the pillow waiting for him.

Perhaps he would rest better in his own bed but the thought of sleeping in a bed without Ven’tar next to him would only give him more pain and longing. Their time may have been short together, even shorter if he only counted when they became intimate with each other, but having her sleep next to him was something he’d very foolishly thought he could always count on. He was not ready for his empty bed.

He was not ready for his empty life.

When he woke up again, perhaps then the hallucinations would stop, and the ghost of her would go away. Hopefully, he corrected as he pulled the useless blanket over himself, and found her standing near the chair. Hopefully they would stop.

She seemed to take in the empty bottles on the floor, the wrinkly wrap around his hips, his sorry excuse for a resting place. He noticed then the jewel colored cloth tied around her arm. The one that matched his own.

Ven’tar frowned.

“Lotor,” she whispered sadly, shaking her head some. “What are you doing?”

“You’re dead. You’re dead,” he repeated, over and over again as he turned away from her, closed his eyes and hoped the nightmare would end when his head cleared from the alcohol. “I watched it all burn. I watched it.”

In the middle of cosmic nowhere, there were no rainbows that promised revelation. There were no little orange fish swaying in the stream. There was only the darkness and emptiness of space next to a dead planet. And hopefully… there would be silence.

“Lotor,” she whispered over him.

In the uncomfortable chair, he fell asleep once again with a last lingering drunken thought that maybe she wasn’t done with him just yet.

 

 


	3. The First Lover/The Widowed Man

_The water on Kompassia is seen by its denizens as sacred._

_It is lifegiving, it is healing, it is special and powerful and important enough to be what bonds life mates for eternity when they choose to wed. Their god, the First Mother, even created the very first of their kind within the depths of their most revered lake, and commanded the creatures of the deep to tend to the sleeping baby who would go on to cultivate the Plantisect people. And since the first, all podlings born after her enter the world from the surface of water._

_These are the stories Ven’tar tells him. He has an eidetic memory and remembers each and every one._

_“Water is our lifeblood,” she told him one day. “It can be yours too, liege. It is a cleansing thing.”_

_When someone is sick, they go to the healing pools instead of a healing pod that Lotor knows better. When someone is injured, the healing waters help close the cut or meld the bone back together or soothe the burn. When someone is suffering emotionally and mentally, the pools are there to tend to that illness as well._

_And for exactly that, the Prince of the Galra finds himself in the warm steamy waters of the healing pools._

_The home the Elders gave to Lotor is a grand one, complete with an outdoor area specifically designed for pools to relax or heal in. Along a nearby wall are numerous jars full of colorful ingredients meant for healing or relaxation. Only his privately appointed healers touch those. Even Ven’tar doesn’t know what all of them are because she is not a healer. The healing pools are designed to be small enough for only two, perhaps three people at one time. It’s meant to be a private task, though there are two other pools next to the one he’s currently in._

_The water feels nice, Lotor thinks as he takes a deep breath, inhaling the very enriching floral scents of his water. Before they left for the night, his personal healers drew up the pool for him, sprinkling in a bit of this and that from the jars to help him relax._

_It has been some time since Prince Lotor landed on Kompassia with an army at his back. What once was a grim event in their history quickly became a hopeful thing as the people began to realize that the Galran Prince was not here to conquer, but to help and serve. They look to Lotor to save them instead of seeing him as their doom. He’s told every day what he means to Kompassia by families, by bonded couples, by little children._

_Every day he sees the stakes, and it destroys him a little more bit by bit. The stress is wearing him down._

_When Ven’tar tells him stories of Kompassia, like that of the First Mother… only then is he built back up._

_When he can stand with her under a rainbow and see the brilliant colors in the reflection of her eyes, then he feels relaxed._

_What all of that means… he’s not too sure. He only knows he likes what he feels around her._

_Lotor takes another breath, trying to relax the way he wants to, and sets his cheek along his arms folded across the edge of the pool. It is above ground, with smooth steps made of clay one uses to climb into the heated water that swirls around his body the color of a pale pink caused by whatever plants and minerals the healers tossed into it. The sky is dark and the stars blink above him. All of Kompassia seems to be asleep, save for him who cannot stop thinking about tomorrow. The grounds of his home are quiet, and skinny lanterns offer some dimmed golden light around the pools._

_He doesn’t think any of this is really helping him, but it’s nice to get off his feet for a while and not wear any of his armor. The only material on his body now are tiny dark blue shorts meant for the water. After his time in the pools, he will make his way to the master bedroom in the house where he sleeps, and allow whatever properties the water has pressed into his skin absorb for the night._

_And then he will wake up yet again, and continue the fight. The quintessence mining has been rather successful so far. His partner is an outstanding one._

_Ven’tar is an outstanding woman he’s come to know well during his time working with her._

_And just as his mind finds its way yet again to his aide, Lotor hears rustling water in the pool next to his own. He looks over, watches the small waves sway back and forth. He sees a couple of bubbles float to the surface._

_Like a creature of the water, Ven’tar suddenly emerges from the surface, flinging her head back to rid any water from her face and eyes._

_His aide had been ordered to live with him in this home, so that she could assist him properly and that there would be no time wasted on travel. This lovely house is her temporary home as much as it is his, and he long gave her access to whatever she wanted on the grounds. It’s only the two of them who live here._

_Lotor watches her from his own pool, her back facing him, and tenses just a bit. He hadn’t known she’d been in the water this whole time. If he had, he would have given her complete privacy. Plantisects can hold their breath underwater for quite a long time, he remembers from his research. It is a relaxing thing for them to submerge themselves beneath the surface, and meditate along the floor._

_As she rises to her feet – wearing only a thin wrap tied around her chest and hips – Lotor wonders if he should look away. She runs her nimble fingers down the back of her head, droplets of water following her lead and flinging themselves off her skin when she commands them to with her power. Her hands get to her slim neck, her shoulders._

_His eyes find the dip of her spine then, and follow it all the way down her back until he gets to her pert bottom covered by a wrap._

_He looks away._

_Ven’tar’s antennae twitch a little, and then she spins around and sees him in the other pool. Instantly she smiles, as she always does when she spots him after not being with him for some time._

_“Good evening, liege,” she calls to him happily. She seems to realize their situations as she eyes him, mulling over the fact that he’s in one of the healing pools as well. The dark green marks on her face, what he assumes are her brows, draw together. “I apologize for disrupting your time of healing. I must’ve sunk below right before you arrived.”_

_“Please, no apologies needed. I was unaware you were down here as well. And good evening to you too.”_

_She seems to study him, and she studies everything. Him, his posture, even his water. She looks down at her own pool, drifts the tips of her fingers through the water. Like him, she has long limbs._

_Especially her legs, he thinks, then stops himself from actually shaking his head at the thought._

_“Have you been in the water for a long while?” she asks him._

_“Not so long. It is still warm.”_

_“Would you care for some company?”_

_Is it proper? he asks himself. Perhaps the Galra would think it very improper for a high-ranking official - royalty for that matter - to share such an intimate space with a subordinate. Especially one of a lesser species than the mighty conquerors of the universe. But her kind don’t think that way, Lotor tells himself. Water is sacred. Water is safe. To her, it is a normal thing._

_And Lotor… tries not to let his mind wander as he stares into her eyes he swears are illuminated somehow._

_“I would not mind it,” he tells her._

_They’re always together when they work, but still he invites her over when they’re not working at all._

_Ven’tar climbs out of her own pool, the illumination in her eyes waning like the dimming of light. She pads on wet feet as she makes her way to his pool, leaving footprints behind in her wake. Her wet wraps cling to her body as water slides down her green skin. She doesn’t mind it at all or even the slight cold one could feel when leaving a warmed pool. The wetness of water is just as normal to her as walking dry land. She climbs the clay steps, steps gracefully into his pool with him, sinks down into the water. Everything she does is always done so gracefully._

_Lotor is suddenly very aware of their closeness, and in so little clothing._

_It doesn’t seem to bother her at all, but there is a moment he spots, a widening of her once again illuminated eyes as she stares at his face. Something about him is surprising to her, something she has no problem inspecting without shame. Her head tilts some, her eyes focused… somewhere near his own but not exactly meeting his gaze._

_He thinks she might be staring at his cheekbones._

_Her eyes glow in the water, he realizes then. That’s what he’s seeing, that is the illumination whenever she enters the water and the dimming when she leaves it. Can she see differently in the water, when her eyes are glowing?_

_Can she see something on him that he cannot see himself?_

_Instantly her fascinated expression changes, and she beams at him. “I like the way your hair looks when it’s wet. It becomes longer.”_

_He grins. “It is only gravity. Water weighs it down.”_

_“The Galra who were with you when you first arrived,” she begins, her shiny eyes on the locks hanging over his bare shoulders. “Your guard. Not all of them had hair like you. Is it because of your mixed blood?”_

_“Some full-blood Galra have hair similar to mine. Some full-blood Galra even have fur.”_

_“Fur? Truly?” Her eyes find the purple of his skin along his neck. “Why do only some of you have fur?”_

_Lotor lifts a shoulder. “It is genetics. Hereditary, I suppose.”_

_Her brows draw together again. “But you call them full-bloods?”_

_He doesn’t really know how to give her an answer to that. Though it is never spoken among the Empire, it is well known to their kind that some Galra have not always bedded other Galra throughout the centuries because the universe is theirs and they can do and take whatever they’d like. They can differ so drastically from each other, at times. Some of them have fur and the others have scales. “There is a commander in our ranks. He thinks of himself as our second in command. Commander Sendak. He is covered in Galran fur. He has also been called the purest of our kind.”_

_Ven’tar hums softly in contemplation. “Does Emperor Zarkon have fur?”_

_Lotor pictures his father, and how he is built so differently from Sendak. The only area they seem to be similar in is the great mass of their bodies. Zarkon is nothing like Sendak. Sendak is the purest of the Galra._

_“No,” Lotor answers. “He doesn’t.”_

_No one is so foolish as to question purity in front of his father. And it seems that the Prince of the Galra is the only one who is called half-breed._

_Lotor stopped questioning their genetics a long time ago. It was safer to close his mouth and be seen as impure._

_Ven’tar looks down at the pale pink water surrounding them, seemingly forgetting her own question. Her arm swirls underneath the surface, creating a small whirlpool between them that captures the little bits of plant and flower added by the healers. He watches the ingredients go around and around and around as they sit in what is surprisingly comfortable silence._

_They’ve worked together long enough and have spent every single day together since his arrival._

_“Rose berries,” she murmurs to him, catching everything that floats by in the circle of spinning water. “And powder plant. And the sweet pink flower. They added this same concoction into my own pool.”_

_The healing pool is meant to treat what ails you. The healers ready the water so that a problem can be soothed or even fixed by adding in the right this or that for the symptoms experienced. Lotor knows what his pool is for. It’s for the stress, the pressure, the sleepless nights, the anxiety. It’s for waking up in a panicked sweat in the middle of the night when he does fall asleep and for his shadowed eyes from too many hours working. It is for the nightmares of an unsuccessful project, and his father barking out the order to destroy all life on Kompassia because he was the one who failed it. That is what his healing pool is for tonight, and every night he takes the time for one._

_And that is what Ven’tar’s own healing pool is for too, he realizes. They share the same ingredients._

_His aide is the second most important person on this planet, straight after him. Without him, the people here don’t stand a chance against the Empire. Without her, he cannot save them._

_Has Ven’tar been suffering alone as much as he has?_

_The very thought fills him with a sadness he has never known because she absolutely doesn’t deserve it._

_“Liege,” she begins again, and Lotor has a very fleeting desire to hear his name upon her lips. “Do you ever think about… not being here anymore?”_

_Her eyes are on the water, on the rose berries and powder plant and sweet pink flower that drift inside the whirlpool. Usually Ven’tar is so willing to connect, to listen, to express. Very rarely does she hide from him, even in such a small way. It concerns him. It makes him want to fix whatever is upsetting her, to do whatever it takes so that she doesn’t feel the things their pools have been made for._

_“Do you mean leaving Kompassia?” he asks, but he knows that’s not what she’s asking. “That is the goal. To ultimately leave you all safe and sound.”_

_She gives a rueful smile. He could’ve mentioned the Empire’s need for quintessence before her planet, but their safety comes first to him. “That’s not what I mean. What I mean is… dying.”_

_Thinking about death has been a constant in Lotor’s life for far too long. Would he, too, cease to survive if he no longer had such access to quintessence, just like his father? Would the wrong night in the fighting pits against the wrong opponent be his demise? Would an assassin succeed in dragging a blade across his throat because they thought to send a message to Zarkon? Lotor thinks about dying all the time._

_But he cannot give the Empire that satisfaction just yet._

_“Do you think about it?” he asks her in return._

_“I have lately. Not because I don’t believe in us or our work, but I suppose it’s only… natural to think of such things in such a tense time. It is like a flash of my life before my eyes.”_

_Illuminating eyes, he can’t help but think, then curses himself for being such a distracted fool. “Are you satisfied with what you’ve seen in this flash?”_

_Her gaze finally meets his then. One corner of her mouth tilts up. “If all of it got me where I am right now… I must say that I am.”_

_Where she is in the grand scheme of things and not literally where she is right now, in a healing pool with him on the grounds of a big and quiet house they share so that they can save her kind._

_But the way she looks at him now makes him… wonder._

_“There is just one thing I’ve been having a bit of trouble with,” Ven’tar tells him, a little more lightly now._

_“And what is that?”_

_“When you are gone, liege, the universe will remember you. You are already written in history, you are part of your father’s flame at Feyiv that could possibly burn for centuries more. You are a Prince. No one forgets a Prince.” She smiles big, as if to tell him that she will never forget a particular Galran prince. But then her smile slowly starts to fall. “Who will remember me?”_

_“Your people love you, Ven’tar,” he instantly says to her. “You would not have been chosen for such an important job if you were not important to the planet.”_

_“An important job,” she repeats softly. Whatever thoughts she’s thinking seems to be bringing her down. “I don’t want to be remembered for an important job. I’m happy to serve Kompassia the way that I am now. But… when I’m gone, who will miss me? I don’t have parents. I don’t have a mate, or children.” She leans back against the wall of the pool. Their long legs are almost touching, they’re in such close quarters. “Is a job the only thing I will be remembered for?”_

_Lotor understands her, and he wonders if she would believe him if he said so. If he died tonight, he would be remembered for nothing more than being Emperor Zarkon’s half-breed son. A motherless prince who had to be shipped off to some distant planet to procure quintessence because there was no other place for him in the ranks. No one would mourn for him. Not in the way someone wants to be mourned. Mourned because someone out there loved them._

_Ven’tar feels the same way._

_He would mourn for her, Lotor realizes. Tremendously. And he will even miss her when he leaves here, when their job is done. When they’ve succeeded._

_“I will remember you,” he tells her then, and the words are out of his mouth before he can think to stop them. He finds he does that a lot around her._

_Her already illuminated eyes flash a little more. “You will?”_

_He gives a nod, and shifts a little in the water. “I will remember watching you pet Kova and sneak him treats when you think I’m unaware of it. I will remember you happily calling to me from the lake when you try to convince me to hold a slimy creature. I will remember this night,” he continues softly, their gazes locked onto the other. “And the way your eyes are glowing in the water.”_

_Her antennae give a soft twitch again, and one corner of her mouth turns up into an almost lazy half grin. “You’re glowing too,” she whispers to him. “And I don’t think you even realize it.”_

_He doesn’t know what that means, but he does catch her eyes falling to his cheekbones again._

_“Well,” she begins after a few silent moments. “If just one person remembers me… I’m glad it will be you, liege. I wouldn’t want to be lost to the sands of time, unremembered and unmourned.”_

_Her words speak to him, and Lotor is a bit stunned how much they do. Ven’tar, he’s come to find during his time with her, is a very wise woman. It almost feels like she’s already traveled this universe and seen everything she could possibly see. Like she was once an explorer, though he knows she has never been to space._

_What would it be like to explore the universe with her?_

_“I will never let that happen, Ven’tar.”_

_He vows it, and it’s one of those internal vows that carry on with a man for the rest of his life. Ven’tar has become his one true confidante. His one and only friend. He trusts her in a way he’s never trusted another living soul in this entire universe._

_It feels so nice to be around someone like that._

_His words seem to speak to her too when she whispers, “I believe you.”_

_They sit quietly again in the pale pink water, but something in the air has changed ever so slightly. Something he’s never felt before and isn’t sure how to respond to. Across from him, Ven’tar sits up a bit more, her green skin wet and shiny. She takes a deep breath, and during it Lotor has a weak moment when he catches how the wrap around her chest hugs against her small breasts. He can see the softness of her flesh there. He worries he’s offended her for his rude glance because she’s still looking at him, but a quick glimpse at her eyes tells him her own are roaming along him too. She seems to be particularly fascinated by his long white hair._

_He doesn’t miss the soft sink of her teeth into her bottom lip._

_“We both feel the same things,” she says suddenly, softly. “Your pool tells me that. We feel the pressure. We feel the stress. We’re aching inside.” She leans forward just a bit and lets her hand reach out towards him under the water. Like a magnet, his own hand seems to automatically reach for hers too, until their fingers are touching. “Perhaps we can feel other things too. With each other.”_

_He tries to stop his eyes from widening but his breath does hitch in his throat a bit. The Plantisect people are very direct and very in tune with their emotions. When it comes to such things, they are so unlike the Galra who always try their best to display brute strength and control at all times. There could very well be a possibility that he is misreading this entire conversation. Her kind are also very tactile. She touches him all the time in ways he has never been casually touched in his life, especially his hands, but it could mean nothing more than a warm embrace between friends and colleagues._

_But the way she slowly entwines their fingers… Lotor swears it means what he thinks it means._

_“Ven’tar,” he begins, keeping his voice steady and firm. “I don’t want to make assumptions. I don’t want to misread you.”_

_“I don’t think you are. I want to be entirely clear. I would like to turn this healing pool into a mating pool. If… you would like to mate with me.”_

_Lotor swallows. “How blunt.”_

_“Sometimes it’s best, and I don’t want to waste any more time. I fear I’ve wasted too much as it is. I’ve been…” She either loses her words, or decides it’s best to switch them around. It takes her another moment to continue. “I think you are wonderful. I think… you are the most wonderful man I’ve ever known. You are brave and selfless and so intelligent. I don’t have a mate,” she tells him again, and perhaps only recently has she felt lonely. Lonely like him. “You don’t either.”_

_“Ven’tar,” he repeats. “You are my aide. You are my partner. You were assigned to me for business.”_

_He doesn’t know which one of them he’s trying to convince, because even as he says the words, his thumb is probing more of her hand under the water, until their touch starts sliding up to their wrists as they grow a little closer._

_“You are aware my people are quite casual when it comes to sex, yes?” she asks him. “If you are concerned for my feelings, then I can assure you that I will not be affected.” And even as she says it, she frowns a little. She quickly gets rid of the expression and goes back to staring at him as if he is the only thing worth staring at. “But… if mating with me will truly make you feel uncomfortable, then of course I will accept it, and we can forget this ever happened. I just thought that for one night… we could be normal. We could do normal things, and not be two people with the weight of an entire planet on their shoulders. I thought we could be weightless here, in the water.”_

_The more she talks - the more he hears the need in her voice - the deeper he feels he’s falling. It’s not a bad drop, but it’s an unknown drop to him, and he’s not sure what will happen when he feels the impact after the falling is finished. She wants to be weightless. She wants to be normal. She wants to relieve some of the stress before it starts pressing on them all over again in the morning._

_“I have never been with a woman before,” he just tells her, and he feels no shame in saying it. He must defend himself always, and it’s the most intimate and private thing he’s ever told someone. “I have never allowed it.”_

_The defeat he was lightly seeing in her expression is taken over by something else, maybe surprise. Or maybe it’s understanding. She grins softly. “I have never allowed such a thing either,” she confesses to him. In more ways than one, they truly are the same. “I am also untouched. I have never felt desire for anyone but you… Lotor.”_

_His name on her lips, and it’s the first time he’s ever heard it. She says it so sweetly, like it’s a beautiful word, and beneath the water, beneath his dark blue swim shorts, Lotor can feel himself growing hard. He’s been trying to ignore it, but with her hand steadily moving up his arm and the way she’s telling him she wants sex, it’s a reaction that comes easily._

_And it feels so much better than being crushed by stress._

_The people here are free. They enjoy each other, they enjoy sex, they enjoy carefree moments with no repercussions. There are mating pools and mating alcoves and mating mats made of soft moss. All of it is for pleasure, for relaxation._

_Perhaps it is his time to indulge, and feel what they feel._

_Feel what they feel… with Ven’tar._

_She moves closer to him in the water, and almost under her breath, she says softly, “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”_

_This is what she wants, he tells himself. Casual sex, just once. He’s tried to ignore being attracted to her, but it’s something that can’t be helped, and it crashed into him whether he wanted to feel it or not. This must be how he and his father are the same, Lotor figures. They finally want a woman, and she is outside their own species. But unlike his mother, Lotor knows Ven’tar’s face well._

_It’s a lovely face._

_If he says yes, for one night he can finally feel pleasure. If he says yes, for one night he can be free._

_Ven’tar is a woman who says what she means and means what she says. If she tells him they can have this one night without it affecting their work or their unlikely friendship, then she knows it can and will be done. He trusts her, he believes her._

_Just one night, he thinks._

_Lotor gives her a slight nod and says, “Alright.”_

_Her glowing eyes beam even brighter as she repeats with confirmation, “Alright.”_

_And without one more second to spare, Ven’tar is gliding through the water effortlessly, and straddling his thighs._

_Lotor tenses just a bit and holds his breath, pressing his back against the wall of the pool. His heart is suddenly hammering in his chest and he can hear the intense beat of it in his ears. He’s just slightly nervous, as anyone is the first time, but he knows she is too. If this is truly the first time she’s ever felt desire, then these new sensations inside her must be overwhelming to her._

_Ven’tar is tall – almost as tall as he is – but she still fits nicely in his lap. Her hands rest on the edge of the pool behind him, and her eyes travel all over him. She speaks when he gently takes her hips._

_“May I touch your hair?” she asks him._

_He nods, and almost reverently, she runs her nimble fingers over the long wet locks of his hair. She repeats the motions over and over again, practically petting him. Her hands start at the top of his head, rubbing back until they drift down the length of the locks. It feels so nice to just be touched like this that Lotor fears he might fall asleep._

_But falling asleep is the last thing he wants to do. His cock is now tenting his shorts right underneath her._

_When she’s done touching his hair, she cups his face in her hands and smooths her thumbs over his cheekbones. She seems to trace a particular shape over his skin. Her eyes flash._

_“Would you like to see me naked, Lotor?”_

_His fingers sink a bit into her thighs when he hears his name again. He breathes out, “Yes.”_

_Remaining in his lap, Ven’tar reaches for the wrap at her hips first. She unties it in the back, unwraps the cloth. It simply floats away in the water, and Lotor gets his first real look at Plantisect anatomy. She looks like a flower between her legs, he discovers. Her petals are a mint green and beautiful, and he wants to sink inside them. He wants to inspect them closer. He even wants to know what they taste like._

_Maybe later._

_Before he loses his mind completely, his eyes flick back up to hers when a certain concern comes crashing to hopefully not ruin the mood._

_“What do you use for contraception?” he asks her._

_“Our fertile time is called Mother’s Favor. I am not in Mother’s Favor at the moment. Your offering will not take hold within me.”_

_“My… offering,” he mutters._

_“That’s right,” she says with a grin. “I’m sure you have a lot of pent up offering inside you. And soon it will be inside me. I’m looking forward to it.”_

_He only gives a breathless, slightly nervous laugh._

_Ven’tar then takes the bottom of the wrap around her chest. She pulls it over her head and frees her breasts. They’re small but fleshy enough, and so pretty. His eyes roam her skin; the dark green of her nipples and the equally dark green markings along her body. There’s a particularly delicious skinny line of that dark green that travels from her collarbone down between her breasts. And because he wants to pleasure her in return, his hands move up her body and cup them. Fleshy enough, he thinks again, squeezing them a little and making her sigh. The water also makes her feel so very soft._

_He gets too distracted with her breasts – especially when he rubs at her nipples and she makes a fluttery trilling sound – and doesn’t feel her tugging on the waistband of his shorts until she asks, “Can you remove these?”_

_Taking his now uncomfortable shorts off means he’s definitely going to fuck her, so he’s quick to pull them down and shimmy out of them, letting them float in the water alongside her wraps. His erection practically springs up and reaches for her petals._

_Ven’tar inspects him as he did with her. “You’re very hard,” she comments._

_“In my present situation, it would be difficult not to be.”_

_She smiles at him. “This means you want me.”_

_“Yes,” he answers huskily. “I want you.”_

_Thank the gods and her First Mother for the water, because Lotor isn’t sure he would be able to last very long when she reaches down to touch his erect cock between them if they were dry and in a bed. She seems to be fascinated by his structure, his knot, and Lotor starts to breathe a little deeper the longer she goes on._

_Her hand is much more pleasurable than his own, even without experience on her part._

_“Do you want me to…” He stops and swallows when she halts her ministrations and looks into his eyes. “Do you want to switch positions? If you would prefer it.”_

_“I would prefer this position,” she tells him, then sets her hands on his shoulders. “I’m not yet sure if I can take you and want to have a bit of control, for comfort. You don’t mind?”_

_“No,” he sighs, and watched between their legs as the tip of his cock brushes against her petals. His head is spinning. She felt so soft, so enticing. So warm, and he wants to sink into the warmth of her. “I want you to be comfortable.”_

_She smiles with such tenderness, her dark lashes fluttering over her gleaming eyes. “Lotor,” she says, hovering over him a bit as she readies herself to take him inside her. The head of his cock finds her petals again, he can feel her entrance. She sets her forehead against his, their noses are touching and he can feel the light prodding of her antennae against his temples. He thinks for a moment she means to kiss him and he even glances down at her mouth quickly, ready for her lips. But she doesn’t, and he remembers that Plantisects don’t kiss on the mouth. They use their antennae instead, to connect intimately. She can’t kiss him the way her people do because he doesn’t have antennae, but she tries. Maybe he should just kiss her lips…_

_“I’m really glad you’re here,” she whispers to him._

_Ven’tar sinks down on him, and it’s the most euphoric sensation he’s ever felt._

_He clutches at her back and hips when he feels her warm flesh surrounding his cock. He groans when pleasure shoots up his spine and straight into his brain, cursing himself that he’s never allowed such a feeling before and also praising himself at the same time that the first time he feels it is with her. Lotor pulls her against his chest, has an intense moment of weakness, of primal need when he opens his mouth against her shoulder and grazes the tips of his fangs against her skin, his hips shooting up automatically to get deeper inside her. Distantly, he hears a soft trill from her that doesn’t sound like the one before. It’s almost like a whimper._

_He quickly comes to and holds her more tenderly._

_“I’m sorry,” he breathes, voice a little shaky as he turns his face into her slender neck. His fangs feel sharper in his mouth, his claws do too on his hands. She’d wanted control and his deprived Galran instincts took it away from her. “I’m sorry, Ven’tar, did I hurt you? Please tell me.”_

_“I’m fine,” she tells him, easing back a little so he can see her face again. She touches his hair and gives him a smile to rid the worry from him. “You fit,” she says happily. “I suppose my body was meant to take you.”_

_“You feel exhilarating.”_

_Her head falls back some and her hands clutch his shoulders. “It already feels so good, doesn’t it?” She moves her hips a little, watches the way his eyes darken with lust. “Already I feel so weightless.”_

_It takes her a bit of adjusting to find her rhythm, but Lotor doesn’t mind her need to experiment at all. Every time she moves, every time she sinks down on him again and makes that intoxicating trill that is full of pleasure, he has to will himself not to come. He concentrates heavily on her beautiful face, her illuminating eyes, her breasts when they lightly bounce from her movements in his lap. Soon that becomes too much for him, especially when she bites into her lower lip, so he focuses on the pool around them._

_She rides him, and with the swaying of her hips, water splashes out of the pool and onto the ground from the waves. Her petals and the muscles inside her squeeze around his cock in a way he never thought possible, as if her cunt is a fist and she can control the pressure exactly where she wants it. It’s probably the greatest moment of his life, the greatest thing he’s ever felt or done. She’s wet and warm and fucks him well, and Lotor grasps the perky cheeks of her bottom when she starts to move faster._

_Ven’tar is holding the back of his neck now, panting hard as her hips continue to rock back and forth. The tips of her antennae are blinking. He’s not going to last much longer._

_He’s given extra time when she stops, when her hands claw at the edge of the pool behind him, using it to steady herself. She leans against him, her body lifted up enough for him to rub his cheek against her breasts and nip at her skin there. He licks her nipple, and she trills and shudders._

_“Lotor,” she breathes, holding the back of his head as he sucks on her small breast. “I want to bloom.” A soft sucking sound is heard when he releases her breast from his mouth and glances up at her. “Climax,” she clarifies._

_He can empty inside her any moment now, all he has to do is get his knot inside her cunt, and the way she’s so receptive to him, Lotor doesn’t think it’ll be difficult for her to take it. Determined now, he wraps his arms around her, locks his eyes with hers._

_“I’ll make you come, Ven’tar,” he practically growls to her._

_They work together now, Ven’tar riding him and Lotor pushing up inside her. She squeezes on him the whole time, that perfect, breathtaking squeeze. The water splashes around them, and it isn’t long before she’s panting again and trembling in his arms. Lotor moans against her, does it again against her neck, his hands grasping her at her ribs right underneath her breasts as he loses himself in her body. She bounces on him until his hips take control again, and he thrusts up inside her for her to take his knot._

_Lotor sees stars for a split second before his eyes roll back into his head as he comes, giving her his offering that triggers her own orgasm, and makes her grasp helplessly at him._

_He swells inside her, she pulses around him. He never wants to leave her body, he wants to stay here forever. Can’t he stay here forever?_

_Their hearts pound against the other._

_He feels drained in the best possible way. It’s as if she’s sucked his soul from his body and pulled it inside herself, and he never wants to disconnect from her._

_In fact… he wants more._

_When Ven moves back to look at him, a lazy smile on her face as she catches her breath, her hand drifts over his cheek. She rubs her nose against his and trills softly to him, those lovely lashes batting until her gaze locks with his, and the intense way he’s staring at her. He’s purring quite loudly too._

_Lotor can’t help himself. He lifts up his chin, leans into her, closes his eyes._

_He kisses her lips._

_She’s unresponsive, and of course she is, she doesn’t know how to kiss, she doesn’t know what kissing is. She’s probably staring down at him, at this lunatic pressing his mouth against hers, but he couldn’t stop the desire to kiss her. Maybe she’ll like it, maybe he can try again. Lotor eases back, catches her slightly wide eyes and the way she blinks down at him. Her mouth is slightly open. He leans in for another kiss and she doesn’t stop him. He tastes her again._

_She’s a sweet one._

_He tries to kiss her tenderly. She responds at some point, hands wandering into his hair as she tries to copy his movements. He eases her mouth open, dips his tongue inside. She definitely reacts differently to that, and breathes against him as they kiss. He’s pretty sure she likes it when their tongues touch._

_The water begins to cool around them, but it doesn’t seem to matter and Lotor can feel himself getting hard again. He’d slipped out of her at some point during the kissing but he wants to sink back inside. He wants to fuck her this time, and even grabs her waist, moves to turn them around._

_“What is this?” she asks against his open mouth, accepting his tongue again._

_Their lips smack apart. “Kissing. I’m kissing you.” He presses her back against the wall of the pool, opens her thighs. “Do you like it?”_

_Ven’tar doesn’t answer him, just stares at his face. As if coming out of a trance, she glances around at their positions, notices he’s reversed them and her legs are now wrapped around his waist. He’s aroused again, she can feel him poking her._

_Something flashes across her face, and it suddenly fills him with dread._

_“I…” she begins, and Lotor can tell she’s trying not to frown. “I must go.”_

_The weight of what they’ve done collapses on him like an anvil. Instantly he moves away from her and gives her space, but he’s also desperate for answers. Of course they didn’t agree to a second round of sex but the way she looks now, as if she’s troubled by something, confuses him._

_“Ven’tar.”_

_She catches his face, must sense his creeping anxiety. She’s an empath after all. “I’m sorry, Lotor, I’m… awfully tired.”_

_“Have I done something wrong?”_

_“No,” she answers instantly, almost shouts it. She takes his hand, squeezes it reassuringly. “No,” she repeats with emphasis. “I promise you. I don’t regret this. I will never forget it and I would not change a thing. I just feel a little…” She tries to find the right words, but she looks a little lost. “Perhaps this is moving a bit fast?”_

_Barely an hour ago they were nothing but partners. A Prince and his aide. Perhaps he went too far into something more intimate than casual sex when he kissed her. He gives a nod, and watches as she collects her wraps from the surface of the water._

_Ven’tar climbing out of the pool makes him feel worse than when he’d first gotten in for healing._

_He doesn’t want her to leave._

_“Ven’tar,” he says, leaning over the edge to chase after her as much as he can while still in the water. “If I made you feel uncomfortable—”_

_She instantly reaches up to press her fingers against his lips and her eyes soften at their new familiarity to her. She stands below him now, her feet on the ground as he remains in the water. She gives him a smile._

_“I’m glad it was you,” she tells him, then moves her fingers away from his lips to cup his cheek. “I have never felt better.”_

_If she wants to go, then he must let her. If she never wants to talk about this night again, then he will give her that because he values and respects her. If she doesn’t want their coupling to mean anything, then he must accept it and move on._

_If she wants to go… why does he want to follow her?_

_She caresses his cheek fondly, then turns around to walk completely naked back to the home that they share, whipping her hands out to dry herself off by willing the water to fly off her skin. Tying her wet wraps back around her body means nothing to her, and as she saunters away without looking back, his eyes roam the back of her. Her neck, her shoulders, the small of her back, her rear, her long enticing legs that go for miles. He looks not in an arousing way, but so that he can capture a mental picture and uphold his vow to her that he will always remember her, especially their one night together. The one night he felt free._

_With a frustrated sigh, he drops his forehead onto his folded arms._

_She’s not even completely out of sight, and already he can’t stop thinking about her._

_Lotor realizes then that even before they slept together, she’s always on his mind in some small way._

_The hours of the remainder of the night go by slowly and torturously. He can’t sleep, he just tosses and turns in his bed. He tries every trick he learned from the Galra, from Dayak, even the people of Kompassia to fall asleep. Sleep has never come very easily or peacefully to him, but tonight is particularly difficult because the very first moment he stepped onto this planet, the very first time he looked at Ven’tar, she wormed her way inside him. She was the first one to smile at him when all the others looked at him as their slave master and eventual executioner. She was the first person to genuinely take his feelings into consideration because she cared about them. She was his first true friend who was not his childhood cat now sleeping in the corner of the master bedroom._

_Lotor gets out of bed, sits on the edge in nothing but black boxer shorts. His skin and his hair still smell of the floral healing pool. Now when he smells the combination of rose berries and powder plant and the sweet pink flower, he will remember Ven’tar sitting in his lap and the wonderful feeling of being inside her._

_It’s just another torture, and it seems he must endure this one too along with all the others._

_His head suddenly turns toward the door when he hears the softest of knocks. His first instinct is to grab a weapon, but his gut makes him reach for his wrist unit instead to check the security drones outside his room._

_His eyes widen when he sees who it is, and in a flash he’s opening the doors for her._

_Ven’tar stands outside, almost frail looking in nothing but a very short and very sheer nighty with her hands clutched together against her chest. Her red eyes are sad and shadowed and her mouth holds a frown._

_She looks as he does. They look the same._

_They are the same._

_“May I come in?” she asks him with pained hope in her voice._

_He just stares at her, then quickly shakes his head to clear it and beckons her inside. Now they’re just silently staring at each other in the darkness of his bedroom._

_Ven’tar looks down in shame at some point as the seconds tick on by. Her hands reach for the hem of her nighty and she nervously wrings it in her hands as she begins to talk. He’s never seen her this way, and it throws him. “I lied to you before.”_

_His heart plummets._

_“I couldn’t assure you that I wouldn’t be affected if we mated. I wasn’t feeling tired. I don’t think whatever… we’re doing with each other now is moving too fast. There doesn’t seem to be enough time anymore,” she says sadly._

_“I don’t understand,” he murmurs._

_She looks up at him, her green skin shining in the radiant moonlight of Kompassia. Her nighty is sheer enough to see her breasts through it but she doesn’t care at all. Neither does he, really. He’s just happy to see her all the time._

_“I left the pool because I was scared,” she confesses. “I left because I thought… there was no way you could ever feel what I feel…” She stops and takes a breath. “No one forgets a Prince,” she repeats from the healing pool. “You are such an important man and I am not good enough for you--”_

_“Ven’tar,” he says suddenly, wanting to interrupt her. He’s still not sure what she’s saying, but he knows he won’t allow her to say such things about herself._

_“I like you,” she blurts out, and how it is such an ordeal for her to tell him that than being so blunt before when she wanted to mate is beyond him. Perhaps because this is where it really counts. “I… I think you’re wonderful. I want to be with you. I like you.”_

_His heart doesn’t plummet, it soars now. And it must show on his face somehow because now she’s stepping up to him, taking his neck to pull him closer to her._

_Now she kisses his lips, and his arms instantly come around her to pull her against him._

_The feeling of being free comes back immediately._

_“I like you,” she says again, almost like a prayer, like a grand confession that has taken a great weight off of her. She thought sex would remove it, but something else makes her truly weightless. They kiss breathlessly, ravenously. Though the action was unknown to her earlier, she does it still and keeps confessing to him in between smacks of their lips. “I like the kissing. I like you. I… I love you, Lotor.”_

_Later she would tell him that she’s loved him for a long time. And even though it wasn’t that long ago that he arrived on Kompassia, she’d known he was the one for her the very first moment she saw him standing in that sea of conquerors._

_Lotor picks her up by the backs of her thighs and carries her to his bed, where she will sleep until their very last night together. Their mouths have fused and disconnect only so that he can pull her nighty over her head as soon as he lays her upon the pillow. Her limbs come around him and the relief envelopes them both again._

_He loves her too. He tells her as soon as he slips inside her once again._

_It’s nice to be free, he thinks._

 

* * *

 

 

It was so nice to be free.

“Ven’tar,” he grumbled, trying to stretch his legs out and wondering why he couldn’t, also wondering why everything seemed to ache, especially his head. His silk sheets weren’t under his cheek, he did not smell the sweet aroma coming from his gardens downstairs, and when he went to reach for his lover, his hand was blocked by a wall of some sort. Slightly confused but trying not to think so much because his head was pounding, Lotor reached in the other direction for her. He was just dreaming of her, of the first time they slept together. Once in the healing pool, another time or two in his bed, where he was now. It was bliss to dream it.

He reached a little too far.

Lotor gasped when he stopped himself from almost falling out of the commander’s chair he’d been sleeping in. He jerked himself back when he felt the terrifying sensation of plummeting, and slumped against the back of the chair his hand had hit before. His dry eyes looked around in the dark, his head pulsing with more pain from his sudden movements. Nothing but a dark and quiet ship. Nothing but black space outside, and a very dead planet.

And ringing was heard. Like strange bells.

Not bells, Lotor saw when he found the source of the sound. Just Kova playing with the pile of empty wine bottles on the floor at the chair. The cat was batting them around, chasing after them.

He wasn’t on Kompassia, Lotor told himself. He wasn’t in his home, in his bed with his woman. He couldn’t reach for her and pull her close and tell her he’d dreamed of the night in the healing pool. He couldn’t slip inside her again as he recapped all the fascinating details of that night. Looking down at his traitorous body, he could do nothing pleasurable with the very unwanted erection he had now because he was quite sure he would never feel true pleasure ever again.

Pitiful, he thought, and fell onto his back again, his _aching_ back from sleeping in this chair that was far too small for him. He would wait for the erection to go away. Already he could feel himself softening under his wrap.

His body hurt, his head was killing him. He was disgusting lying here with his unwashed body, his greasy hair and dry eyes and mouth that had drunk far too much wine for… how long?

His heart hurt too, and the agony of that was slowly killing him. Already he was wasting away with dreams of a time he could never have again and ghostly visions of his dead love.

The Weblum was coming, and it was the only thing that didn’t give him pain.  

As Kova continued to play with the evidence of his very broken heart, Lotor stood shakily to his bare feet. The ends of the black wrap tied loosely at his hips fell to the floor, the only other garment on him the Kompassian band around his bicep, and he just stood there for a time, waiting for the dizziness and nausea to lessen. During that time, he stared out of the grand window of his ship, looking at space. Quiet lonely space. He would die here. He would be lost to that quiet dark and cold loneliness.

Behind him, Kova meowed. Lotor turned to him.

“What are you doing, Lotor?”

He jumped back, frightening by this ghost, vision, _whatever_ she was that was suddenly standing right there in her silver dress, her arms behind her back as she innocently asked her question as if she hadn’t died an awful fiery death. He didn’t vomit this time but his heart did start up frantically again. He just stared at her, fangs slightly bared as he panted softly.

Ven’tar looked him up and down. Kova apparently had pranced off to something more interesting. It was just the two of them. But was it really? Lotor wondered.

“You look more filthy than that time our vehicle broke down in the desert region and we had to camp out in the dirt for three days, glow bug. Why is this? And your hair,” she murmured, folding her arms across her chest. “You’ve never allowed yourself to be in such an unkempt state. I must say I’m a bit disappointed.”

Disappointed, Lotor mulled. She was disappointed. He was disappointing a dead woman.

His father would laugh at him.

“What is this?” he asked her.

“What is what?”

“What is… this?” he asked again, waving his hand around her.

“This?” She seemed to follow the path of his hand, then looked down at herself. “This is my new dress. Do you like it?” Ven’tar lifted up the long shirt of her silver dress, flared it out to show him. The straps were thick as they sat on her slender shoulders, the neckline dipping low down to her stomach. That dark green line between her breasts he’d once loved to trail his tongue along was perfectly visible in such a stunning gown made of shiny silver silk.

Lotor took a moment to catch his breath. “Are you really here, Ven?” he asked sadly as his eyes wandered from that dark green line back up to her face. “Or have I truly gone insane?”

“Why does it matter? Am I here as a spirit, am I just a fantasy, am I a mirage caused by deep space or a hallucination because of the wine and your empty belly? Honestly, Lotor, what really matters is _you_. What _you_ are doing. And you have yet to answer me.”

He didn’t know _what_ she was, and it seemed she wasn’t the one to tell him. But he saw her clearly, so she couldn’t be a spirit. He heard her as if she was standing right before him, so she couldn’t be a fantasy. “Insanity, then,” he muttered with acceptance.

She gave a soft laugh. “I don’t think so, love. You’ve forgotten I’m always right. I’m going to need to remind you of that, aren’t I?”

“A dead woman has nothing left to be right about,” he told her plainly.

She playfully scoffed and batted a hand out at him as she wandered passed him closer to the window of space. “Locking yourself up on this ship has made you also forget your manners, I see.” She peered out, her eyes reflecting the stars. “Do you remember when you brought me out to space? It was soon after we first made love. I’d never been to space before and you wanted to show me Kompassia the way you had first seen it, like a vagrant island sitting among the stars.” She spun around to grin at him, the ends of her dress twirling at her bare feet. “That was one of the best nights of my life.”

Lotor looked at her and frowned. “Of course I remember that.”

“But do you really?”

“Yes,” he slightly snipped. “You told me it was one of your dreams to see space, if only for a moment because you didn’t think you could ever really leave Kompassia. So I brought you to see the stars within the stars.”

She seemed to consider him. The stars behind her blinked around her blackened planet. “You remember that dream,” she began, holding his gaze. “But you are refusing to remember the dream I most wanted to come true. You can’t even say it, can you? Go on and try, glow bug.”

Lotor let out a long, devastated breath. Hearing her nickname for him felt like a stab in the gut. “I can’t do it anymore, Ven. I’m not free anymore, now that you’re gone. You kept me going. What dreams we had together are no more.”

Her brows drew together. “You are more free than you’ve ever been. There isn’t even an Emperor to answer to.”

He realized, as what was left of the mutilated pieces of his heart ripped apart again, that she was right, as she always was. He was so free now that there was no Empire or Emperor. There was no Kompassia to keep safe and there was absolutely no more reason to wear the band still wrapped around his arm that matched the one wrapped around hers even as a ghost or a hallucination or whatever she was now. Lotor reached up to touch it, felt a clench of pain in his heart as his hand began to shake from the devastation of the whole thing.

“This isn’t fair,” he whispered.

“Lotor.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do, Ven’tar,” he almost shouted at her. Shouting at someone who couldn’t truly be there. This is what he’d been reduced to. “None of this is fair to me. I finally feel free and happy when I find you only for you to be taken from me so brutally that I must remain on my knees while I watch you burn. I did everything I was supposed to do to save you, I _succeeded_. And I was still punished. Now I do nothing because there is _nothing_ left to do, I have no obligations, I have no people, I have no mate. I am finally able to just… sleep. And yet you still haunt me. I’m still suffering.”

“Suffering is a season,” she told him, her eyes determined and wise. “Seasons end. You do not _need_ to be suffering now with your greasy hair and your empty wine bottles and your stubbornness to sleep in your own bed instead of injuring your body in that chair. You aren’t listening to me. You don’t remember my dream. You don’t remember my plan. You have forgotten me,” she said sadly, her voice equally full of pity and sorrow. “You promised you would remember me. That night in the pool. You are the only one who will.”

_Lost to the sands of time, unremembered and unmourned._

It was a fate she’d thought worse than death and destruction.

Lotor stared at her, at the woman he’d loved so much, so fiercely and so freely. Even standing with him now, she looked so lonely and lost, and he wondered if that was how she’d been when she died because he hadn’t even been given the courtesy to die with her so she wouldn’t be alone. Her accusations now made his chin start to tremble and his eyes start to fill with distraught tears.

“Well,” he said softly, his voice breaking a bit. “You certainly aren’t _unmourned_ , now are you?”

He turned away from her, feet dragging and head casted down in grief as he walked away. Once again, he ignored the wine bottles along the floor.

“You have to find me, Lotor,” she called after him. “I haven’t left you, I’m here. You have to find me. You have to remember the plan.”

He ignored her too. Suffering wasn’t a season, he argued in his head as he made his way to the bathing chambers. Suffering was a constant. It had taken him by his little throat the moment he’d been birthed into this universe, and it had not let him go. It wouldn’t until he died. On this, Ven’tar was wrong.

“The Weblum is coming, Lotor,” she whispered down the halls like the ghost she was. Her voice was haunting.

Yet another thing he would choose to ignore.

But some of her words had gotten to him and wouldn’t be ignored. His head pulsed with pain and his stomach was in knots, his hands shaky at his sides and his arm burning from the band tied around it. One of those shaky hands lifted for the nozzle of the bathtub. As the water in the dark bathroom filled it, Lotor untied his black wrap around his hips, let it fall to the floor. Carefully he stepped in naked and eased down into the hot water. In this pool, there was no rose berries or powder plant or sweet pink flower. No naked woman to lessen the suffering.

Just her voice in his head and a haunting vision of her in his eye.

The Weblum was coming.

Lotor sank down into the water and submerged himself completely.

 

 


	4. The Bonding Pool/The Empty Ship

_ If his father could see him now, the Emperor would be quietly seething in rage.  _

_ Zarkon would no doubt tell Lotor, if he were standing with him, that he was making the greatest mistake in the history of their kind. He would do what he could to stop Lotor, either removing his son entirely or threatening him with some great consequence or even offering Lotor someone better, someone the Emperor would approve of. He would immediately announce five names of five willing females high in their ranks, great commanders of the Empire who would make a fitting bride when Lotor would decide it was time to wed. This powerful and worthy Galra woman could bear him proper children and strengthen his fleets and eventually become a suitable Empress. Having to witness his one and only son throwing his life away with some unfortunate species of weak insect-like creatures was something that would make the reigning Emperor of the Galra slam his fist down with the strength of the entire doomed Empire.  _

_ Rage was something Lotor would ignore.  _

_ If his father could see him now, there was also a chance the Emperor would not be surprised by his son’s poor choices at all, and disown him while snickering and a mocking “I expected nothing more from you, my son,” out of his mouth. “Of course you would choose a lesser being.”  _

_ Lotor was a failure to him in every way. For as long as he could remember, Zarkon had made that fact known to him, even when he’d been a little boy wanting only to be with his father to watch him, to study him, to try to admire him so he could earn his love. Zarkon was a man who had wed outside his species but his father was not shy in telling Lotor his mother had been a great weakness, and that he will never feel such a flaw ever again. Lotor could make the very same mistake as his father, and yet the son would be the disappointment because their great Emperor could do no wrong, and learn from those mistakes.  _

_ If it was mockery instead of rage, Lotor knew he could ignore that too.  _

_ Zarkon had controlled him in every way since the moment he’d been born, coming from the body of a woman Lotor still didn’t know.  _

_ He would not control who Lotor decided to marry. In fact… Zarkon would know nothing about the wedding of his one and only son.  _

_ Ven’tar looks breathtaking, Lotor thinks as he stares at her.  _

_ Soon she will be his wife.  _

_ Lotor knows the many risks of marrying her. If his father found out, he would not approve, be it in rage or a condescending tone. The Galra have already had one Empress who was not of their kind, and it almost destroyed their people and all the power they’ve gained in this universe. Lotor also doesn’t yet know where they would live. Once he’s done his work he cannot stay, though he could keep a home for her here if Kompassia is where Ven’tar wishes to remain. He’s also not spoken to her in detail what marrying a prince entails. Neither of them know if they’re compatible when it comes to children.  _

_ It has been less than a year since meeting her. Ven’tar has told him she feels like there isn’t enough time. Somehow… he feels the same.  _

_ Can he save them? Can he save her? Can he do what needs to be done to keep her forever? Is he marrying her because fear and desperation are forcing him to live like every day is his last? There isn’t enough time, and the time he’s had already has been miserable before her.  _

_ Why waste any more time not being married to each other?  _

_ The risks are many, but the rewards outweigh them.  _

_ Lotor knows some things are worth the risk.  _

_ Meeting her, becoming her friend, becoming her lover, asking her to marry him. It’s all happened in the blink of an eye. All less than one simple year.  _

_ And he has never been happier.  _

_ Elder Voli-aan, the old woman who had welcomed him with a sad and defeated frown on her face and a somber thought in her head that he would enslave her people, is the one who performs their bonding ceremony with a proud and happy smile on her wrinkled face now. She opens her arms out, says to the couple to be wed and the few standing as joyful witnesses, “Tonight, in the name of the First Mother, two shall be made into one.”  _

_ For now, their wedding is occurring without the Empire present or even aware. For that reason, Lotor is marrying Ven’tar in the way of her people’s culture. The Plantisect people perform their bonding ceremonies, like other important rituals, in sacred water. The bride and groom and Elder who will marry them all stand in hip deep water of the bonding pool, surrounded by the intense beauty of Kompassia that includes glowing flowers along the banks and floating on top of the warm water, and a scattering of glow bugs that signify the beaming light of their marriage. Lotor and Ven’tar wear the ceremonial wraps made of sap silk that float in the water like captivating wings. His is simply tied around his waist with his upper body bare, and the only other addition she has on her body is a thin and tiny bandeau around her chest.  _

_ But there is one other garment that is not part of her culture, yet Ven’tar wears it anyway, and wears it proudly.  _

_ The only thing Lotor has of his mother, whoever she is, is the veil she wore when she married Zarkon so long ago.  _

_ When he was a boy and curious about the woman who gave birth to him, he’d done some snooping that would have earned him a hefty punishment. In his father’s things, already covered in dust, was the wedding veil of his mother, stored away as the only thing left of his father’s only weakness.  _

_ Lotor had stolen it, kept it.  _

_ And offered it to Ven’tar to wear, if she desired to.  _

_ “This is all I have of my mother,” he had told her the night before this one. The veil was kept on his personal ship where his father could not stumble upon it. “I don’t know her name and I don’t know her face. I don’t even know what blood ran in her veins that makes half of mine. The choice is yours, Ven’tar, and I would not be upset if you choose not to wear it. But…”  _

_ She had carefully taken it from his hands, ran her nimble fingers over the fabric as if it were something precious and holy. She had smiled up at him with eyes glittering in grateful tears and told him, “Of course I will wear this. I will honor your mother tomorrow when I marry her son.”  _

_ And along with the sacred sap silk wraps of her people, she had secured his mother’s veil onto her head.  _

_ She beams while wearing it and she can see the great emotion in his eyes for doing so.  _

_ “These hallowed waters will prepare your bonding wraps,” Voli’aan tells them, taking two pieces of cloth woven only for married couples to-be and placing them on the surface of the pool between them. Usually the ceremony is performed in their own language, but for him things are being done a little differently. They are the first interspecies mates of Kompassia. “Now is the time for you both to give the other the vows that will bind you as life mates. Lotor, you will go first.”  _

_ He never thought this day would come, Lotor thinks as he stares at his beautiful bride. He never thought he would stand here, on any planet or before his own people in space, and declare his love and fidelity and body to a woman who would do the same for him. He had given up on being married or committed because his position came with too much stress and responsibility, because his father was cruel, because his own heart was complicated and didn’t know love to ever be able to give and receive it.  _

_ How could a man give love when he’d never been gifted it?  _

_ With the right person, it was an easy thing to do.  _

_ It was easy to want to become Ven’tar’s husband, and any moment now he would be exactly that for hopefully the rest of his days.  _

_ “Ven’tar,” Lotor began, speaking only to her as he held her hands in his while they stood in the water. The glow bugs danced around them and the gleaming flowers pulsed with colorful light. “I know this moved quite fast and I don’t care that it did. I will never regret this fast pace, or the very reason I stepped foot on this planet. I wish I had been faster to get to you. There is no danger and no risk high enough that could keep me from falling for you. I will always take care of you. I will strive to give you everything you deserve. I will love you always.” He stops then because he needs to. Lotor knows he’s in love with her but that last vow is something he feels burn into his heart for the rest of his life. Even if one of them doesn’t make it, even if something happens that will tear them apart, he knows that not a moment will pass when he won’t love her because she was the first. And she will always be the last.  _

_ Lotor grasps her hands, stares deeply into her eyes, and finishes his vows. “I’m happy when I’m with you and I’m unhappy when I’m not with you. Everything I have and everything I am is yours.”  _

_ Voli’aan grins, and takes this moment to gesture to the wraps floating between them. “Now, Prince Lotor, you will secure the bonding wrap to her body. These wraps can be worn anywhere she, or you, desires, but for now you will place it around her wrist.”  _

_Lotor reaches for the wrap that is supposed to last a lifetime. He’s seen the bonding wraps around thighs and ankles and even a neck on a married man at the markets. The cloth will be their symbol of marriage. Something they will wear proudly and forevermore. It feels delicate and soft but also durable, and he carefully wraps it around Ven’tar’s thin wrist. He really hopes he’s doing it correctly._

_Ven’tar’s chin trembles a bit as she stares down at her wrapped wrist. The ends of his mother’s veil floats in the soft warm breeze._

_Voli’aan lets out a few chirps in their language, and says for Lotor’s sake, “Your turn now, Lady Ven’tar.”_

_He’s never had a true friend before her, besides his cat. He’s never had a partner that he trusts completely, and has never allowed such vulnerability like undressing and allowing a woman to touch him intimately. Ven’tar became all of those things to him._

_And now she will speak her vows, and bond with him for life._

_“I have been alone my entire life. It was my choice to remain so. My decision to make,” Ven’tar tells him, squeezing his hands and declaring her love for him to her people and her beloved planet. “I never thought I would be standing here in these waters, wearing this silk and feeling this wrap on my wrist. But the very first moment I saw you, I knew that would all change. For the first time in my life, I wanted a mate. I wanted you. I was only in waiting for a star-faring Prince to arrive, and find me.”_

_Lotor remembers the day he landed here with guards and guns and machines that would take this beautiful planet’s quintessence and supply the empire that wished to enslave them. He remembers seeing her when she’d been presented to him as his aide, and the big smile on her face as she looked at him as if he were a great gift to her people. He didn’t feel like a gift that day. He felt like the plague that would wipe them all out._

_But it seems she knew what he would become to her, and this place._

_Ven’tar tells him often that she is always right._

_“My glow bug. My pretty Prince Lotor. Whatever obligations come with marrying you, I vow to take them all, and do my very best to make you proud. You will never feel unloved or alone again. Whatever burdens weigh on you, I will be there to take half of it. I will protect you, I will never hurt you, I will always remain by your side. I will lift you up when you feel low. I will carry you when you feel weak. I will be there to remind you that you are perfect just as you are, and that you are kind. You are wise. You are wonderful._

_“You are a leader,” Ven’tar continues, reaching for the one wrap left that she will place on his wrist, and bind them forever. She wraps the band delicately, runs a thumb over the material with the hand that carries her own cloth. “And you are not your father.”_

_Once again, her words speak to him. They burn into his flesh, on his brain, every last inch of him. This is too perfect, he thinks, staring down at their matching bands, into her glittering and happy eyes. She’s too perfect. She’s worth the wait when he’d been suffering._

_If anything tore them apart, he would not survive it._

_The glowing bugs around them hover a little closer to her. Lotor watches as a few of them land on his mother’s veil attached to her, making the material and Ven’tar gleam like an angel. After all the suffering he endured before landing on Kompassia, he gets to see such a vision._

_He gets to become a husband to the best woman he’s ever known._

_“The bindings are secured by these blessed waters made by the First Mother herself,” Voli-ann declares. “This union is now approved by our god. Two are now bound into one, and forever entwined even in death. You are now pronounced life mates.”_

_The Plantisect people don’t kiss when the ceremony is complete. Instead, they connect intimately by their glowing antennae so that they can feel exactly what the other is feeling in this joyous moment._

_But the Galra kiss._

_With a bright smile, Ven’tar reaches for him and pulls him close. She kisses him, and while it is a strange thing to her kind, it is still met with happy cheers and celebratory splashes and gleeful chirps. Voli’aan, with great approval, bows to the royal couple._

_History is made on this day, and the universe is completely unaware of it. A unroyal Kompassian woman has married a Galran prince, unbeknownst to the Emperor._

_The rewards are worth the great risk._

_There is a feast to celebrate the new life mates, but Lotor and Ven’tar have chosen to keep it simple and quiet and quick. It is customary for the new bride and groom to be given gifts to enhance their fertility for when they choose to start procreating, and while Ven’tar graciously accepts the sashes and vials of various tonics and oils, she is grateful they aren’t totally bombarding her. This is new for Kompassia, this marriage of two who are not the same species. Children may not be possible for them. Neither of them know for sure because they also don’t know what blood makes up Lotor’s other half to give a proper answer._

_Ven’tar tells him she doesn’t care if they can never have children. He is enough for her, and the very declaration seems to go against all the Plantisect people hold dear. Her love for him is stronger than even the wishes of her culture._

_It is thrilling for Lotor to be loved by such a woman._

_When the others start asking her if they should call her Princess Ven’tar, Lotor can tell she has no idea how to answer them, and whisks her away so they can consummate in their bed back in their home._

_The only cloth that remains on their bodies for the rest of the day and the next is their bonding wraps._

_Lotor pants heavily, some tendrils of white hair sticking to his sweaty face and his claws finally releasing the headboard from his tight grip. There are scratch marks in the wood, but there are already many more from all the other times he’s fucked her and needed to sink his talons deep into something other than her flesh. Ven’tar’s long limbs are wrapped around him, holding him close as she trembles from coming underneath him. She calls it blooming, and she blooms so beautifully that he must lean down to kiss her sweetly before he rolls off of her._

_Ven’tar trills softly next to him. The silk sheets are draped across her hips, leaving her breasts bare, and she makes no move to cover them up. She’s a woman who enjoys being naked when she can. Their room is dark and the windows are open wide for the soothing night breeze and a few candles flicker from the wind. Ceremonial ones that carry a scent meant to stoke great desire._

_It’s so perfect, Lotor thinks again as he turns his head to look at her. He has a wife now. He’s a husband._

_The band around his wrist feels so nice and absolutely secure._

_But there is a world outside these doors. There is a universe beyond this planet, and his father controls it all. There is an empire he has to answer to. And those things are not perfect at all._

_It comes crashing into him before he can stop it._

_“There’s so much we haven’t discussed,” he mutters, staring up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t we discuss it before we married?”_

_Perhaps any other woman would become unnerved by his words so soon after her wedding. But Lady Ven’tar is wise and it doesn’t worry her at all because she knows him so well. “We didn’t discuss it because we didn’t,” she tells him plainly. “But we can now.”_

_Lotor doesn’t want to think of his father now. He wishes he didn’t have to think of Zarkon ever again, but such a wish is impossible. “The Galra don’t take marriage lightly. Before Voltron, they would mate for life. Some still do, even if their mate no longer lives. This marriage of mine… They will honor it.”_

_“Is that an awful thing?”_

_He is the heir to the throne because his father’s flame still burns on Feyiv. He is still Galra, and any children he has in the future will be part Galra too. One day he will be Emperor. Lotor turns onto his side to face her. She meets his eyes, and he knows she can see the guilt in his blue hues. She can feel it when her antennae twitch._

_“Are you prepared to become empress to the Galra?” he asks her softly, as if he fears her answer._

_She stares at him and seems to ponder his question. Lotor’s mind flies into the future, when he takes the position as leader and Ven’tar being forced to stand by his side with a crown she’s never wanted. She never had the desire to take a mate before him. He’s changed so much for her, and perhaps it isn’t fair. They should have talked about this more, Lotor thinks, scolding himself. He should have told her everything that would be expected of her when she accepted a prince’s hand in marriage. But a ticking clock in their heads made them desperate, and reckless._

_Has he ruined her life? He couldn’t bear it if he has._

_“Was your mother the empress?” she asks him. “Or did she carry some other title because she wasn’t Galra?”_

_The way she asks her question so lightly… It surprises him. “My governess and my doctors have called my mother the late empress. I know so little about her. But it seems that because you’ve married me… You will be empress as well.”_

_Ven’tar seems to contemplate again. She looks at the ceiling, lifts her hand to inspect her bonding wrap around her wrist._

_She grins._

_“Empress Ven’tar,” she says, and the spoken title drifts around their bedroom like a soft breeze. She giggles softly then. “My darling, do you think I would have agreed to marry a future emperor if I was not prepared to stand by his side with a title of my own?” She looks at him again, drifts the back of one finger along his cheek, right under his eye. She loves to touch him in that particular spot. “I would become empress, or queen consort, or even nothing at all. Whatever you wish of me, my love, I will do my very best to make you proud.”_

_His eyes soften as much as his heart does in that moment. Lotor leans up some on one arm so he can look down at her as she continues to caress his face. “And if your new duties call for you to leave your beloved Kompassia? Your people for mine?”_

_She only lifts a bare green shoulder. “Your people are my people, as mine are yours. I will love the Galra and take responsibility for them because they are mine, and help you lead them to a brighter and more peaceful future. And as for Kompassia,” she adds, rubbing his hair back. “I will always love my planet, but I love you more. I would rather be with you than without you.” When she sees in his eyes how much her words affect him, she gives a dramatic sigh. “Lotor, this doesn’t need discussing. Not this topic at least, because I am absolutely committed to you in every way. I think what we should discuss instead is you understanding that I will remain at your side until I no longer breathe.”_

_Her nimble fingers drift through his long hair and his eyes close in bliss when those fingers find his cheek again, his lips, and the soft skin under his eyes she seems to enjoy caressing for some reason. The purring begins before he’s aware he’s doing it._

_“I do not question your feelings for me, Ven’tar,” he whispers to her, and eases back down onto the pillow facing her. Their noses are mere inches apart. “I know them to be true and deep.”_

_“Then what is it you fear, glow bug?”_

_“I fear…” So many images flash before his mind and he feels his heart begin to pound the longer they go on, like a bad prophecy that taints multiple realities and he is powerless to stop it. “I fear the things these pure and hopeful eyes of yours will see when I return to the Empire with my new wife. I fear the cruel and harsh words your ears will hear come from my mouth because I must say them to retain what little power I possess. I fear this precious hand of yours,” he continues with great emotion as he gently takes her wrapped wrist in his grasp, “of slowly dying from the tight constriction of this band when I must command an empire seeking control of all things and all worlds. Our way is victory or death, Ven’tar,” he tells her, face tightening in worry. “I must give them victory or death, at least for some time. What I fear most in this life is that you will wake up one morning and your heart has lost its love for me, replaced by great regret that you have married a man you never realized could be so cruel.”_

_Her eyes go sad for him, her long black lashes fluttering as she murmurs, “Lotor.”_

_He continues because he must, even though he may put the thoughts in her head that make her reconsider him. It terrifies him, the possibility that she might leave. But as Ven’tar loves him more than Kompassia, he loves her more than himself._

_“I fear my… great desire to be part of your happy world here has made me forget the one I come from. The brutal and unforgiving one I must return to. The one I brought you into because my desire to have you was so strong. I’m… very scared,” he confesses to her, his throat tightening and his eyes burning. “This fear consumes me more than the stress we both carry here together, from our mission. Here I am Lotor, Lady Ven’tar’s new husband, and it’s only that I wish I could stay, if I had a choice. But the Empire is full of expectations, and with the Galra I must constantly prove myself in ways that might scare you, as well. I couldn’t bear it, Ven’tar, if I scared you in such a way.”_

_Lotor doesn’t know what else to say and he never thought he would need to say so much on their wedding night. Ven’tar is quiet as she takes his confessions in, swirls them around her head like someone would when sampling a wine. Somehow she is always right, he remembers. Whatever she will eventually tell him will be what she knows and what is meant to happen._

_Even if that means leaving him._

_“Do you know what I do not fear?” she suddenly asks him, and being given a question perplexes him. He watches her face intently as she continues, her hand still resting upon his cheek. “I do not fear the magnificent things my eyes will see you will do as Galran Prince and as Emperor, how you will stand tall and lead and be a beacon of light to those left in the dark. I do not fear the things my ears will hear you say when you give hope to all worlds, and teach the Galra all that you will learn. I do not fear painful tightness around my wrist because of our wedding wrap, but a powerfully secure and very proud bond that I would show the entire galaxy if I am able.” She gives him a big and bright smile. “And every morning I wake next to you, I will know I married a man I never realized could be so driven, so kind, and so admirable. Those are the things I don’t fear, and they so wonderfully cancel out what scares you, don’t they?”_

_She surprises him constantly, the things she knows and says to him. Lotor is so overcome by her that he must close his eyes when he feels them mist over. His heart beats for her. Without her, he will die._

_Ven’tar’s adorable green nose scrunches up playfully as she laughs, using her thumb to wipe away one stray tear from his eye. “I would never want you to remain simply Lady Ven’tar’s husband on a planet that will soon not need you. You are far too great a man for us to keep. You will save this universe, Lotor. I don’t yet know how and I don’t know when, but you will. And I will forever be by your side to help you do it. That is my dream.”_

_Lotor pushes an arm under her to pull her naked body flush against him as his other hand rests atop hers on his cheek. The tips of his claws at her back lightly drift over her green skin. “Even if I must do bad things?” he asks her._

_She gives a carefree shrug and rubs her nose along his. “You never do bad things, glow bug. Not truly. You do difficult things others are not brave or driven enough to do, but in the end they are always for good. I never want you to lose that side of you, do you understand your new wife?”_

_He smiles with her, kisses her softly. He can barely stop and soon it deepens. He can spend eternity in this bed with his most perfect wife. “I don’t know what I would do without you, my love,” he whispers against her mouth. She trills in contentment in the same way he purrs with her. “I would be lost.”_

_“No,” she argues playfully with a grin. “You will go on because you must. I would find a way to contact you if you are ever without me.”_

_“Don’t you remember my vows, future Empress to the Galra, champion of hardened hearts? I am happy when I’m with you and unhappy when I am not with you.”_

_Ven’tar taps lightly on his cheek for emphasis. “Be happy always, slayer of tyrants.”_

_On this night, in the arms of his wife, Lotor kisses her again and knows he’s happy._

 

* * *

 

 

Now that he is without her, Lotor knew was very unhappy. 

And he cannot breathe. 

He wanted to die. The thought came to him as soon as he submerged into the bath water, as soon as it covered his nose and his hair was floating around his face like ghostly tendrils, as if he were already a dead man. A spirit like Ven haunting the halls of his ship still anchored by their rotting home beyond. Perhaps they could haunt it together, he mused as he listened to the water rushing in his ears. Maybe centuries from now, some band of space travelers would happen upon the ship, discover that it once belonged to a long dead and exiled Galran prince who never made it to emperor. Kova would probably still be alive then. It could be just the three of them here for eternity. Two spirits and one quintessence infused cat. 

As his lungs began to burn and his throat started to jump under his skin as it called out for breath, Lotor thought how he could just stay down here a few moments more, until he passed out. And then it would all be over. He could remain in the quiet, in the water. It was peaceful. He didn’t have to hurt any longer. All he did was hurt. 

_ You will go on because you must.  _

With a very loud and terrifying gasp, he shot up from the bath water, taking in as much air as his neglected lungs could inhale. His heart pounded in his chest and his hands were shaky and his soaked hair was in his eyes, but he breathed. 

The hurting hadn’t stopped. 

While he waited for his frantic body to calm after being without air longer than normal, Lotor focused on his breaths, eventually reached for the hair in his eyes to push his wet locks out of his face. His eyes fluttered open. 

“What are you doing, Lotor?” 

He wasn’t startled by her this time. Perhaps now he was just accepting his insanity in a way he hadn’t before, but he did catch the new tone in her voice. More annoyed than simply curious, as if he were in trouble. More disappointed with him than tender and patient. 

Ven’tar sat across from him in the tub, her silver dress still on her body and floating in the water, soaking down to her skin but she didn’t seem to care. His head felt a little woozy from too much alcohol and not enough food and it certainly hadn’t helped that he’d stayed under the water for too long. His shadowed and dull eyes only stared back at her. 

He was certain he looked more dead than she did. She had burned away and yet she looked beautiful now, and he was the one who was rotting. 

“Bathing,” he answered plainly, deciding not to comment on her annoyed tone or that frustrated line between her brows. He didn’t want to hear it. 

“Not only have you forgotten me, but it seems you’ve also forgotten what species you are, my love,” she told him, resting her arms on the sides of the tub. His eyes lingered on her wedding wrap. “Did you think you were Plantisect for a moment? You only married one, you did not become one. Neither Galrans nor Alteans can hold their breath for so long.” 

“You just commented on how filthy I am and now that I’m attempting to clean myself, you will scold me for soaking?” If a ghost or hallucination could be angry, he knew the vision before him was. They both seemed to know his sabotaging thoughts while submerged. “And I have not forgotten you so I will appreciate it if you will quit mentioning that.” 

She gave a shrug. “On this we will disagree,” she muttered. Even in death, her eyes still illuminated in the water. Her yellow sclera gave off the softest glow. “Go on, then. Bathe yourself. One small step at a time, I suppose.” 

He eyed her before turning away and looking to the bath products nearby. As he focused on soap for his hair, he thought about how much of an emotional wreck he’d become to sit here calmly for a bath while the image of his dead wife sat before him. As suds filled the surface of the water from shampoo, he saw Ven’tar trail her fingers through them. It was more of a strange sight now that she sat in his bath with him in a lovely dress while he remained naked. 

Nothing was right anymore. 

Ven’tar grinned while he took a loofa and began to cleanse his purple skin. “We used to bathe like this quite often, didn’t we? It feels so normal. I loved shampooing your hair, it is such a marvelous thing that grows out of your head. I think my favorite were the sun showers though,” she sighed dreamily. “Running water outside in the alcove, warmed by the sun right above. It felt nicest when the sun was highest and we would take a break from our work.” 

Lotor stopped washing his neck, his arm just easing back into the water, his eyes distant and sad as he listened to her. He could picture those sun showers now. He could practically feel the warmth, the steam, the way her fingers washed his hair and hear the way she laughed when he would gently tickle her sides. He swallowed in sorrow. 

“We would disrobe as we made our way outside,” she continued, bringing all the wonderful memories back. “There would be a trail of clothes from our home to the sun showers. Someone could easily find us but we didn’t seem to care. Sometimes you would chase me, sometimes you would carry me, sometimes your mouth would never leave mine until we got to the water. It was bliss.” 

“Are you trying to torture me?” 

Ven’tar only stared at him, her lashes fluttering over her glowing eyes. 

“Is that what you’re doing here?” he asked her, his gaze harsh, as well as his tone. “I don’t want to hear any more of it. I don’t want the memories so stop speaking of them.” 

“They are _your_ memories, Lotor. They are your thoughts.” 

“Well I don’t want them,” he said firmly, going back to scrubbing at his skin, harder this time. “I want to forget them. I confess now, I _do_ want to forget. If our positions were reversed, I would never do this to you. Stars, how do you think you’re making me feel right now? You want me to suffer.” 

“No,” she said softly with a shake of her head. “I want you to move on. I’m trying to help you do so.” 

“And could you move on so easily from me, Ven’tar?” 

She was quiet, as she always was when she would think of how best to answer him in a way he would understand. Finally she said, “I could never move on from you. I would be ruined, if our positions were reversed.” 

Lotor gave a dramatic roll of his eyes and a condescending laugh. “So I must suffer like this and try to find my way out of this grief, but you would get to linger in it?” 

“I am not you. I am not destined for greatness. I am not the one who can save others from your father because I am already slain by him.” Her words were harsh and they cut his heart open, but she didn’t appear to regret them. She didn’t have to regret anything anymore. “I was only a simple girl who married a prince. You are supposed to shake the universe, Lotor. You are supposed to be the slayer of tyrants, the great defender who will build New Altea. You are the one who does what must be done.” 

One more deep cut for every title she’d bestowed him. He even flinched from the pain as he sat in his dirty bath water. “I don’t want to be those things anymore.” 

And as she sat before him, the ghost of his wife frowned at him. She even reached for her arm and clutched at the wrap there. “And if it was my last wish?” she asked softly, sadly. A defeated spirit. “My last words to you? What would you do if you heard them?” 

Frustrated and miserable and ill from wine, Lotor stared down at the cloudy water, at the loofa in his hand. A few moments went by, and then he reached for his own wrap above his elbow, mirroring her. “I can’t hear them.” 

“Can’t you?” she whispered to him. “Or… are you just not looking for them?” 

Nonsense, he thought, shaking his head and once again resuming his bathing. The water was starting to get cold. How long he’d been sitting here talking to himself, he wasn’t sure. He wanted the anger to come back, he realized. It was better than being so sad. But it seemed he was too exhausted to muster up any more fury. 

Perhaps he could get there again. 

“If I was to be all those things,” Lotor started, taking a moment to scrub at his face. “The emperor. The slayer of tyrants. The one who _shakes the universe_. Then what of you? You were to be my empress. Empress Ven’tar, queen consort, or nothing at all. You were supposed to stand by my side as we led the Galra together. I can do none of that if all you are now is _nothing at all._ ” 

The light seemed to come back to her when she smiled at him. She approved of his clean skin and hair and he saw her gaze drop down to the Altean markings unseen on his cheekbones. “We never know where our destinies will lead us. Sometimes we have to clear the path. Sometimes we have to help the ones we love onto the new path instead of the lost one. That is what I am now. That was my destiny all along, and I gratefully accept it. I may not be empress and I may be the one forgotten by all but you. But I am the one who shows you the way.” 

He wanted to go back to the bonding pool, he thought as he looked at her, a dead woman wearing a pretty dress in a dirty bath. He wanted to go back to his wedding night, and remain there forever. He wanted to go back to the moment where he’d slipped the wrap onto her wrist, a moment not taken by the empire or his father. They had yet to come and take everything from him. 

But the night of his wedding was one they could never have. 

“I’m the one who saves you, Lotor,” Ven’tar said. 

How she would ultimately save him… he just didn’t know. And right now he didn’t have the strength to be saved or to follow whatever way she thought she was meant to show him. Lotor finished bathing. When he finally stepped out of the bath and dried and secured his black wrap back around his hips, the image of Ven’tar was gone from the water. She must be drifting down the halls, he figured as he wiped the mirror of steam so he could see his gaunt face and shadowed eyes. Drifting and planning how to upset him next that was disguised as helping him _move on_. 

It didn’t take long at all. 

As he was combing his wet hair, the dark ship was suddenly filled with the flashing color red and alarms sounding off. He heard Kova frantically scurry into another room from the jolt of danger and his heart began to pound again. In his wrap, Lotor walked without hurry to the bridge of the ship. On the big screen, the warning continued to flash red. 

_ Danger. Threat incoming.  _

Lotor’s blue eyes looked around outside the ship’s window passed the screens. All he saw was a blackened Kompassia and the stars. He’d thought for a moment perhaps the Galra had found him and were going to shoot down his ship. There were no enemy ships out there. Only a dead planet. The engines began to hum to life under his bare feet, a safety measure. The empty wine bottles on the floor rattled from the great vibrations. The screen flashed again after the ship’s technology did another scan of the perimeter. It showed him the findings. 

But Ven’tar’s voice filled the room instead. 

“The Weblum is here, Lotor.” 

__

 

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](http://mermaider00.tumblr.com/)


End file.
